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JAMES STERN

James Stern is a multi-faceted musician whose violin playing has been heard worldwide and cited by the Washington Post for “virtuosity and penetrating intelligence.” In addition he enjoys an ever-growing reputation as a violist and conductor.

Stern is a member of two critically acclaimed ensembles, the Stern/Andrist Duo with his wife, Canadian pianist Audrey Andrist, and Strata, a trio in which the two of them are joined by clarinetist Nathan Williams. The duo has performed throughout the United States, Canada and China, with additional recitals in Munich and Paris. Both ensembles have performed numerous world-premieres of music written especially for them, including world-premiere recordings for CRI and Albany records.

Stern has served on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music and is now Associate Professor and Chair of the String Division at the University of Maryland School of Music. He has taught masterclasses throughout North America and in China, Norway and Italy.

He has performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Banff and Bowdoin festivals as well as at New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall. Since moving to the Washington, D. C. area he has performed with the 21st Century Consort, the Contemporary Music Forum, the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Axelrod Quartet, at such venues as the Corcoran Gallery, the German and French Embassies, the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum, National Museum of American History, Renwick Gallery and American Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the National Museum of the American Indian, Strathmore Mansion and the White House.

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