Philippe Quint violin
Award-winning American violinist Philippe Quint is a multifaceted artist whose wide range of interests have led to several Grammy nominations for his albums, performances with major orchestras throughout the world at venues ranging from the Gewandhaus in Leipzig to Carnegie Hall in New York, a leading role in a major independent feature film called Downtown Express, and explorations of Astor Piazzolla’s music and Nuevo Tango with his band The Quint Quintet. Philippe Quint plays the magnificent 1708 “Ruby” Antonio Stradivari violin on loan to him through the generous efforts of The Stradivari Society®.
A recent winner of the “Ambassador of Arts” award presented to Philippe by Brownstone and Gateway Organizations at the United Nations, his 2013/2014 season included debuts with the London Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, and San Antonio Symphony, among others. This season’s highlights include debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and returns to Indianapolis, San Diego, Oklahoma, and Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestras. His recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Sofia Philharmonic led by conductor Martin Panteleev, paired with Anton Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35 (for violin, viola, and two cellos), featuring cellists Claudio Bohorquez, Nicolas Altstaedt, and violist Lily Francis, was released in September 2014 on AvantiClassic, which Gramophone described as a “conspicuously persuasive, dazzlingly assured” performance.
In the summer of 2014, Philippe hosted an evening called “Philippe Quint & Friends,” presented by the Russian American Foundation at the New York Times Center that featured John Corigliano, Joshua Bell, Michael Bacon, J. Ralph, and Emily Bergl. Along with Lou Diamond Phillips, Darren Criss, and Lea Salonga, Philippe appeared at the Kennedy Center’s “After the Storm” Benefit Concert for the Philippines and debuted at the Hollywood Bowl as a part of a special “Joshua Bell & Friends” evening appearing alongside Joshua Bell, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and actress Glenn Close.
Constantly in demand worldwide, Quint’s most recent appearances include performances with the orchestras of London, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Minnesota, Bournemouth, Houston, Weimar Staatskapelle, Royal Liverpool, China National, Orpheus, Berlin Komische Oper, and Leipzig’s MDR at the Gewandhaus. He has performed under the batons of Marin Alsop, Carl St. Clair, Daniel Hege, Andrew Litton, Cristian Mace laru, Kurt Masur, Jorge Mester, Edo de Waart, Jahja Ling, Krzysztof Urbanski, Ludovic Morlot, Marco Parisotto, Martin Panteleev, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Klauspeter Seibel, Christopher Seaman, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Steven Sloane, Michael Stern, Bramwell Tovey, and Martin Yates among many others.
Philippe Quint is the first classical artist to star in the lead role of a major independent film, Downtown Express, co-starring Nellie McKay, from producer Michael Hausmann (Gangs of New York, Brokeback Mountain, and Amadeus), and multi-Emmy winning director David Grubin. This 2012 film premiered in New York and Los Angeles as well as at a number of national and international film festivals, including Woodstock, New York; Houston (Opening Night); Mons (Belguim); Cuba; Vermont; and Florida.
Philippe Quint’s formidable discography includes a large variety of rediscovered treasures along with popular works from standard repertoire. In November 2013, he released to critical acclaim Opera Breve with pianist Lily Maisky, a unique collection of opera transcriptions for violin and piano featuring both popular and rare songs, on Avanticlassic. In May 2014, Quint recorded the Khachaturian and Glazunov Violin Concertos with the Bochumer Sinfoniker and Steven Sloane. Always searching and exploring with genres outside of classical music, in 2015, Philippe will release yet another exciting project of creative arrangements titled “Bach XXI” with Matt Herskowitz’s Jazz Trio as well as a debut recording with his Quint Quintet.
An active chamber musician, and in addition to leading his own Chamber Festival in Mexico City, Philippe frequently collaborates with cellists Alisa Weilerstein, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, Nicholas Altstaedt, Zuill Bailey, Claudio Bohorquez, and Jan Vogler; pianists William Wolfram, Inon Barnatan, Simone Dinnerstein, and Jeffrey Kahane; violists Nils Monkemeyer and Lily Francis; as well as his esteemed violin colleagues Joshua Bell, Cho-Liang Lin, Vadim Gluzman, Nicola Benedetti, Lara St. John, and Chee Yun Kim.
Quint’s live performances and interviews have been broadcast on television by CBS, CNN, ABC, BBC World News, NBC, Reuters, Bloomberg TV, as well as by radio stations nationwide, including NPR, WNYC, and WQXR. His recordings have received multiple “Editor’s Choice” selections in Gramophone, The Strad, Strings, and the Daily Telegraph. His remarkable degree of lyricism, poetry, and impeccable virtuosity have gripped the eyes and ears of audiences in Asia, Australia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the U.S., with what The Times (London) describes as his “bravura technique, and unflagging energy.”
Quint’s first album for Avanti Classic, a recording of the Mendelssohn and Bruch Violin Concertos and Beethoven’s Romances with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería led by Carlos Miguel Prieto, was released in 2012. Gramophone described Quint’s performance as “pure sound and refined expression. An account well worth hearing.” His recordings of William Schuman’s Violin Concerto (2007) and Korngold’s Violin Concerto (2009) were both nominated for Grammy Awards. Other critically acclaimed albums include the world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Red Violin Caprices, Ned Rorem’s Concerto, Miklos Rozsa’s Complete Works for Violin and Piano with William Wolfram, Bernstein’s Serenade, and a unique compilation of works by Paganini arranged by Fritz Kreisler, which BBC Music Magazine called “truly phenomenal.”
Philippe Quint studied at Moscow’s Special Music School for the Gifted with the famed Russian violinist Andrei Korsakov, and made his orchestral debut at the age of nine, performing Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 2. After moving to the United States, he earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. His distinguished pedagogues and mentors included Dorothy Delay, Cho-Liang Lin, Masao Kawasaki, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Arnold Steinhardt, and Felix Galimir. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed, “Here is a fiddle virtuoso whose many awards are fully justified by the brilliance of his playing.” Among his many honors, Quint was the winner of the Juilliard Competition and Career Grant Recipient of Salon de Virtuosi, Bagby and Clarisse Kampel Foundations.
