"...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 2012-2013 season, Mr. Laredo will continue touring both as a soloist as a member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, including conducting engagements with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and The New World Symphony. 2012 also marks the beginning of Mr. Laredo's time as a member of the Instrumental and Chamber Music faculty at Cleveland Institute of Music. During the 2011-2012 season, Mr. Laredo celebrated his 70th birthday with engagements such as his performances at the 92nd Street Y with colleagues, family and friends (including violinists Pamela Frank, Steven Tenenbom, and Jennifer Koh, pianist Benjamin Hochman and his wife, cellist Sharon Robinson) Already this season, Mr. Laredo and Sharon Robinson 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 1977, the Trio performs regularly at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y in New York, and the Kennedy Center. 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 a Piano Quartet with 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 he 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. In 2009 the Trio released a 4-disc set of the complete Brahms' Piano Trios. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio has recently released the complete Schubert trios, and Mr. Laredo has also released an album with Sharon Robinson 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. Both albums were released by BRIDGE on October 1st, 2011.
Embarking on another recording project with his colleague and former student Jennifer Koh, the two will release the album Two x Four in 2012. The project celebrates the relationship between teacher and student through music. Jaime Laredo and Jennifer Koh perform Double Concerti for Two Violins by J.S. Bach, Philip Glass, and commission new concerti by composers Anna Clyne and David Ludwig.
Recognized internationally as a sought after violin teacher, Mr. Laredo has fostered the education of violinists that include Leila Josefowitz, Hillary Hahn, Jennifer Koh, and Ivan Chan, Soovin Kim, and Bella Hristova. After 35 years of teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Mr. Laredo now holds a professorship at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where his wife Sharon Robinson also holds a teaching position. Additionally, Mr. Laredo is 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. He is also Artistic Director of the Brandenburg Ensemble, and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music at the Y series at the 92nd Street Y in New York. In 2009 Mr. Laredo and his wife were named the Artistic Directors of the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati, Ohio.
As Artistic Director of New York's renowned Chamber Music at the Y series, Mr. Laredo has created an important forum for chamber music performances which has 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 and more recently with the Aspen Music Festival, he has also been involved at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, and the Hollywood Bowl, as well as the festivals in Italy, Spain, Finland, Greece, Israel, Austria, Switzerland and England. This season he will open La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest, with Cho-Liang Lin, and returns to the Orchestre National de Lyon as conductor/soloist.
Born in Bolivia, Jaime Laredo resides in Vermont and Indiana with his wife Sharon Robinson.
(2012-2013)
