Conductor, violinist and eminent pedagogue Joel Smirnoff has been a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1986, and the ensemble's leader since 1997 when he replaced Robert Mann as the first violinist of the quartet. Since joining the quartet, he has performed with them on four continents. As of this year, Joel Smirnoff is the newly appointed president of the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Mr. Smirnoff was born into an eminent New York musical family. His mother sang with the Jack Teagarden Band under the stage name of Judy Marshall and his father, Zelly Smirnoff, played in the NBC Symphony under Toscanini, and was second violinist of the Stuyvesant String Quartet. Joel Smirnoff is married to the renowned concert violinist, Joan Kwuon.
Mr. Smirnoff has served on the chamber music faculty of The Juilliard School since 1986 and on the violin faculty since 1989. He was Co-Chair of the Violin Faculty from 1992 until 1997, when he became the Chair.
From 1995 until 2000, Joel Smirnoff served as Head of String Studies at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he also participated in the String Quartet Seminar. During those years, he was part of the planning team at the Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Smirnoff has been a chamber music coach at Tanglewood since 1983.
Mr. Smirnoff has participated in the Great Mountains Festival in Korea as violin teacher, chamber music coach and conductor. He has been on the violin faculty of the Bowdoin International Festival for two years and has appeared and taught Master Classes at Summerfest in La Jolla during two summers — 2004 and 2007.
In recent years, Mr. Smirnoff has become a much sought-after conductor. He assisted Maestro Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood Music Center from 1993 until 2000, helping to prepare the Music Center Orchestra for performances, and leading performances of his own. In 1998, he opened the Leonard Bernstein Memorial concert at Tanglewood, sharing the program with Maestro Seiji Ozawa and Robert Spano; and in 2002 he led a semi-staged performance of Erik Satie's "Socrate."
In the summer of 2000, Joel Smirnoff conducted the San Francisco Symphony in an all-Tchaikovsky program. He has since conducted the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra on two occasions, the Louisiana Philharmonic on two occasions, the Phoenix Symphony, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, the Amarillo Symphony on two occasions, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the Juilliard Symphony on two occasions, the Juilliard Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.
In November 2001, Joel Smirnoff led the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra in two concerts in Norway, replacing Christian Tetzlaff on three days notice. Mr. Smirnoff had made his critically acclaimed European conducting debut in March of 2000, in four concerts with the Basel Sinfonietta and Charles Rosen as soloist in the Elliott Carter's Piano Concerto; followed by the orchestra's mini-tour of Basel, Winterthur, Zurich and Zagreb.
As the second-prize recipient in the International American Music Competition for Violin in Carnegie Hall, Mr. Smirnoff was presented in recital debut by Carnegie Hall in its "Emerging Artists" series, as well as by Town Hall in its "Midtown Masters" series. In 1997, he was featured violin soloist at Tanglewood in a concert dedicated to the memory of violinist Louis Krasner, performing the Berg Violin Concerto under the direction of Bernard Haitink.
Joel Smirnoff also plays jazz and has appeared frequently with Tony Bennett in concert and on TV. His improvised solo on "Fly Me to the Moon" can be seen on the DVD "Tony Bennett Live by Request" and two improvised solos can be heard on the Grammy award-winning CD "Tony Bennett Sings Ellington Hot and Cool".
In addition to his Grammy-nominated SONY disks with the Juilliard, Mr. Smirnoff also has an extensive catalog of solo recordings, including the world premiere recordings of numerous 20th century works by composers such as diverse as Louis Gruenberg and Joan Tower.
Home
40th Anniversary
Copyright
©
Juilliard String Quartet
Disclaimer Original
site design by: TeknoWizards,
L.L.C.