Joseph Lin Joins the Juilliard String Quartet

Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi announced today that 32-year-old violinist Joseph Lin, an alumnus of Harvard and The Juilliard School Pre-College, will join the Juilliard String Quartet as first violinist beginning in 2011. He also becomes a member of the Juilliard violin faculty beginning with the fall 2011 semester. Mr. Lin currently is on leave from his position as a professor at Cornell, spending time in Asia to study Chinese music. He returns to the US to complete the spring semester at Cornell before joining the other members of the Juilliard Quartet - violinist Ronald Copes (Quartet member since 1997), violist Samuel Rhodes (1969), and cellist Joel Krosnick (1974) - as a full-time member. Mr. Lin follows violinist Nick Eanet who has resigned from the Quartet because of health issues.

In announcing Mr. Lin's appointment, President Polisi stated, "The Juilliard community is delighted to continue the great tradition of the Juilliard String Quartet through the appointment of Joseph Lin. Joe brings extraordinary artistry, intellect, and a vision to his new post. We all welcome him as a member of the ensemble and of our faculty."

The Juilliard String Quartet was founded 64 years ago as the School's resident quartet by then-Juilliard President William Schuman. Since then, the JSQ has encompassed twelve different members, with changes happening singly during that time. (A complete chronological roster appears at the end of this release.) The Quartet's international career has encompassed performances throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North and South America.

The continuing members of the Quartet unanimously commented on the search and subsequent choice of Mr. Lin to become the ensemble's lead violin, recounting that, "During the spring, summer, and early fall of 2010, we conducted a careful search for a new colleague who could help us to continue the high artistry which the Quartet has represented for more than 60 years, and to help lead the Quartet into the future. During that time we played with a number of brilliant violinists and musicians. Out of that process, Joseph Lin, who has participated for the past several years at the Marlboro Festival, emerged as the natural choice as our next colleague."
Mr. Lin is an active solo and chamber musician who has performed in major halls throughout the world. He is a Concert Artists Guild winner who also was a founding member of the prize-winning Formosa Quartet. His new colleagues continued comment on his versatility and accomplishments by saying, "Mr. Lin is a virtuoso violinist of the highest order, as well as a superb chamber musician. Further, he is a most serious artist with wide-ranging interests that include Chinese music and culture. We firmly believe that his deep thoughtfulness about music will add a remarkable voice, that will embrace and complement the ongoing dialogue that always has been a strong characteristic of the Juilliard Quartet."

On being selected as the first violinist of this historied quartet, Mr. Lin remarked, "I am delighted to have the opportunity to join the Juilliard String Quartet, an ensemble whose artistry and leadership has touched the lives of audiences and musicians around the world. My relationship with my new colleagues has already been marked with generosity, both musically and personally. As we continue a dialogue that has welcomed many voices over the past six decades, I look forward, with my colleagues, to building on the ensemble's venerable history, weaving our individual experiences together to carry the Juilliard String Quartet into a new and fruitful era."

Joseph Lin, violin, is an active solo and chamber musician who has performed at Symphony Hall in Boston, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Wigmore Hall in London, Town Hall in Auckland, and the Salle Cortot in Paris. He has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Sapporo Symphony, the Taiwan National Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Ukraine National Philharmonic. His regular festival appearances include Marlboro, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Tucson Winter Festival, and the Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs.

Mr. Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. In 1996, Mr. Lin was awarded First Prize at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts the same year. In 1999, he was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award, and in 2001, he won First Prize at the inaugural Michael Hill World Violin Competition in New Zealand. His recordings include the music of Korngold and Busoni on the Naxos label, the unaccompanied works of Bach and Ysayë on the N&F label, and the Formosa Quartet's debut CD released by EMI.

Mr Lin's violin teachers include Mary Canberg, and at the Juilliard Pre-College, Shirley Givens. While at Harvard, (where he graduated magna cum laude in 2000) he also studied violin with Lynn Chang. In 2002, he began an extended exploration of China, spending 2004 studying Chinese music in Beijing as a Fulbright Scholar. Since 2007, Mr. Lin has been an Assistant Professor at Cornell University where he has organized the Chinese Musicians Residency, which was inaugurated in April 2009. In 2009-2010, Mr. Lin led a project with Cornell composers to study the violin Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, and to create new music inspired by Bach. This culminated in a series of concerts in the spring premiering the new works alongside Bach's Sonatas and Partitas.

Mr. Lin's 2010-2011 concerts include performances in Germany with pianist Alessio Bax; solo engagements with the Ukraine National Philharmonic, the Yomiuri Symphony in Tokyo, and the Taiwan National Symphony; and chamber music at Weill RecitAl Hall, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Tucson Winter Festival, and the Marlboro Festival.

THE JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET

The Juilliard String Quartet is internationally renowned and admired for performances characterized by a clarity of structure, beauty of sound, purity of line and an extraordinary unanimity of purpose. Celebrated for its performances of works by composers as diverse as Beethoven, Schubert, Bartók and Elliott Carter, it has long been recognized as the quintessential American string quartet.

In the 2010/11 season, the Juilliard String Quartet performs throughout North America, including dates at Alice Tully Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Louisville Chamber Music Society, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Van Cliburn Concerts and elsewhere.

Recent seasons heard the JSQ in concert on tour in Australia, at the Konzerthaus Vienna, at the Palacio Real in Madrid, and at the Cité de la musique in Paris with an accompanying two-day residency at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. The Juilliard String Quartet offered special programming in recognition of Elliott Carter's 100th birthday, performing the world premiere of his new Clarinet Quintet with Charles Neidich at The Juilliard School, the European premiere of the work at the Konzerthaus Berlin, and his String Quartet No. 2 in concerts around the world. As ardent advocates of Carter's complex and visionary string quartets, the Juilliard's landmark recording of Quartets Nos. 1-4 was released by Sony in 1991. The Quartet celebrated its 60th anniversary season with complete Bartók cycles (the Juilliard Quartet played the American premiere of the Bartók cycle at Tanglewood in 1948) in major cities throughout the U.S. and Japan. In honor of both the Juilliard's 60th birthday and the Shostakovich centennial, Sony BMG Masterworks released a 2-CD set of the Juilliard Quartet's recordings of Shostakovich Quartets Nos. 3, 14, 15 and the Piano Quintet with Yefim Bronfman. Other recent highlights include a pair of concerts presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall; the world premiere of Ezequiel Viñao's Quartet II, "The Loss and the Silence," commissioned for them by The Juilliard School in honor of its 2006 centennial; and international performances of Bach's "Art of the Fugue." At Carnegie Hall, the Quartet appeared on Maurizio Pollini's "Perspectives" series with pianist Martha Argerich, and in the Hall's 100th anniversary gala. In a departure from the classical norm, the Juilliard Quartet has twice been the featured ensemble - comedic and musical - on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion."

As Quartet-in-Residence at New York City's Juilliard School, the Juilliard String Quartet is widely admired for its seminal influence on aspiring string players around the world. The Quartet continues to play an important role in the formation of new American ensembles and was instrumental in the formation of the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, La Salle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, Shanghai and Colorado string quartets.

The ensemble has been associated with Sony Classical, in its various incarnations, since 1949 and in celebration of the Quartet's 50th anniversary, Sony released seven CDs containing previously unreleased material as well as notable performances from the Quartet's award-winning discography. With more than 100 releases to its credit, the ensemble is one of the most widely recorded string quartets of our time. Inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences in 1986 for its recording of the complete Bartók string quartets, last season saw the digital release of classic JSQ recordings on iTunes

Ronald Copes, violin
Praised by audiences and critics alike for his insightful artistry, violinist Ronald Copes has received international acclaim as concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Having appeared as a featured performer in the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Bermuda, Cheltenham, Colorado and Olympic music festivals, Mr. Copes has toured extensively with Music From Marlboro ensembles, the Los Angeles and Dunsmuir piano quartets, and, since 1997, with the Juilliard String Quartet in concerts throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

He has recorded numerous solo and chamber music works for radio and television broadcast, as well as for Sony Classical, Orion, CRI, Klavier, New World Records, ECM and the Musical Heritage Society. Devoting considerable energy to the development and presentation of contemporary string literature, he has worked closely with composers and has given the first performances of a number of solo and chamber works.

Mr. Copes has garnered prizes in several national and international competitions, including the Artists' Advisory Council, the Merriweather Post and the Concours International d'execution Musicale in Geneva. For two decades he was Professor of Violin at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1997, he joined the faculty of The Juilliard School where he currently serves as chair of the violin department. During the summers he is on the artist-faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival.

Samuel Rhodes, viola, this year is celebrating his 42nd year as a member of both the Juilliard String Quartet and the faculty of the Juilliard School where he is chair of the viola department. He has been a participant in the Marlboro Festival since 1960 and is a faculty member of the Tanglewood Music Center. His solo appearances have included several recitals at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and an unaccompanied recital at The Juilliard School. During his 40th celebratory season he played recitals in Hamburg, Germany and at Juilliard. In June 2001, Mr. Rhodes was invited to play a recital in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Viola Space in Tokyo, Japan. He gave the world premiere of Figment IV for solo viola by Elliott Carter in January 2008 in Paris. In 1998, Mr. Rhodes had the honor of being invited to join the late Isaac Stern as a coach at his Chamber Music Workshops in Jerusalem, Israel; Miyazaki, Japan and Carnegie Hall, New York.

A native New Yorker, Samuel Rhodes studied the viola with Sydney Beck and Walter Trampler. He has a bachelor of arts degree from Queens College, New York and a master of fine arts degree from Princeton University where he studied composition with Roger Sessions and Earl Kim. As a composer, Mr. Rhodes wrote a String Quintet for two violins, two violas and cello, which has been performed by the Blair, Composer's, Galimir, Pro Arte and Sequoia quartets. The Pro Arte Quartet recently recorded the work with the composer as guest artist.

Mr. Rhodes has been artist-in-residence at Michigan State University and has been awarded honorary doctorates by Michigan State, the University of Jacksonville and the San Francisco Conservatory. He has appeared as a guest artist with many ensembles including the Beaux Arts and Mannes trios and with the Brentano, Cleveland, Guarneri, and Mendelssohn quartets.

Joel Krosnick, cello, has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician around the world. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1974, he has performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. With his sonata partner of more than 30 years, pianist Gilbert Kalish, Mr. Krosnick has performed recitals throughout the U. S. and Europe. Since 1976, they have given annual series of recitals in New York City and recently presented the series American Milestones of the Last 100 Years at The Juilliard School.

With Mr. Kalish, Mr. Krosnick has recorded the complete sonatas and variations of Beethoven and the sonatas of Brahms, as well as works by Poulenc, Prokofiev, Carter, Hindemith, Debussy, Janacek, and Cowell for the Arabesque label. Especially noteworthy is their CD devoted to the cello and piano music of Ralph Shapey. Yet to be released is a CD, Forgotten Americans.

Mr. Krosnick completed his bachelor of arts degree at Columbia College where he began his lifelong commitment to contemporary music. He has performed and premiered a large number of new works by composers including Donald Martino, Ralph Shapey and Richard Wernick. Joel Krosnick's recording of the Sonata for Solo Cello by Artur Schnabel appears on the CP2 label, and his CD of Roger Sessions' Six Pieces for Solo Cello is presented on Koch Classics. In February 2011, Mr. Krosnick will present a solo recital at Juilliard that includes works by Wernick, Sessions, Shapey, Babbitt, Carter, and Martino.

A dedicated and passionate teacher, Mr. Krosnick is chairman of the cello department of The Juilliard School and is a member of the faculty of Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Maine. He has been associated with the Aspen, Marlboro and Tanglewood music festivals, and appeared for the third time as a member of the artist-faculty of the Piatigorsky Seminar at the University of Southern California. A recipient of the Chevalier du Violoncelle Award from the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at the Indiana University School of Music, Mr. Krosnick holds honorary doctoral degrees from Michigan State University, Jacksonville University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.