Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson to Join Cleveland Institute of Music

November 4, 2011 - It is with a sense of great anticipation that the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) welcomes violinist, violist and maestro Jaime Laredo and world-renowned cellist Sharon Robinson to its instrumental and chamber music faculties for the fall 2012 semester.

Concerning their appointment, President Joel Smirnoff said, "Maestro Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson are two world-renowned artist-pedagogues whose presence within Cleveland and within our school is going to be a source of great pride and excitement for Northeast Ohio. There can be no doubt that Maestro Laredo and Ms. Robinson will inspire our students in new and important ways and will offer CIM as an institution and Cleveland as a city a myriad of new artistic resources and possibilities for the future. And beyond their artistry and pedagogical excellence, these are two wonderful human beings of great depth."

The 2011-2012 season marks Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson's 35th anniversary as violinist and cellist respectively of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. The Trio celebrates 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.

Jaime Laredo

Jaime Laredo's connections with Cleveland are fascinating and historic as his artistry was, to some extent, molded by Cleveland's earlier musical scene. As a youth, Jaime Laredo studied with former Concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra, Joseph Gingold at the Music School Settlement. In the years immediately following, he would fly into Cleveland periodically to play for and be coached by Music Director George Szell. Maestro Laredo received an Honorary Doctorate from CIM in 2006.

Recognized internationally as a sought after violin teacher, Mr. Laredo has fostered the education of violinists that include Pamela Frank, Leila Josefowitz, Hillary Hahn, Jennifer Koh, Ivan Chan, Soovin Kim, and Bella Hristova. After 35 years of teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Mr. Laredo and Ms. Robinson both took teaching positions at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. 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.

For 15 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.

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 11 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 17, Mr. 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 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.

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.

Sharon Robinson

Winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, the Piatigorsky Memorial Award, the Pro Musicis Award, and a GRAMMY Nominee, cellist Sharon Robinson is recognized worldwide as a consummate artist and one of the most outstanding musicians of our time. Whether as a recitalist, soloist with orchestras, or member of the world-famous Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, critics, audiences and fellow musicians respond to what the Indianapolis Star has called "A cellist who has simply been given the soul of Caruso." Her guest appearances with orchestras include the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, National, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco Symphonies, and in Europe, the London Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Zürich's Tonhalle Orchestra, and the English, Scottish and Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestras.

Highly sought after for her dynamic master classes, Ms. Robinson brings insight to her teaching from the rare combination of her lifetime experiences as member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Ciompi String Quartet of Duke University, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, plus countless solo recitals and concerto performances.

Ms. Robinson's television appearances have included The Tonight Show, the Today Show, the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, a profile on CBS Sunday Morning, plus guest staring with Garrison Keillor on the Prairie Home Companion on NPR. Equally impressive are her festival engagements, which include Spoleto, Mostly Mozart, Seoul Spring Festival, Aspen, Marlboro, London's South Bank, Madeira, Granada, Edinburgh, and Prague's Autumn Festival where she performed the Dvořák Cello Concerto at the famous Dvořák Hall.

This season, in celebration of their 35th wedding anniversary, Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo will release an album entitled "Triple Doubles," consisting of 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. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio will also release the complete Schubert piano trios. Both albums are on BRIDGE Records.