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Hilary Hahn

Hilary Hahn

Born in November 1979, violinist Hilary Hahn of Baltimore is already gaining recognition as an important musical talent.

Admitted to Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at the age of ten, Hilary studies with Jascha Brodsky—the Efrem Zimbalist Professor of Violin and a founding member of the Curtis String Quartet. Hilary first played with a professional orchestra at 11, and her widely publicized major orchestra debut came with the Baltimore Symphony in December 1991. Last season she appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Utah Symphony under Joseph Silverstein, the Baltimore Symphony with David Zinman, the Delaware Symphony, the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, the Florida Symphony, and other orchestras. Hilary’s 1993-94 season includes her European debut with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, first performances with the Alabama and Ft. Collins Symphonies, and reengagements in Baltimore, Florida, Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania.

As a recitalist, Hilary has appeared in Baltimore, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. She has given a solo recital on Philadelphia radio station WFLN-FM, been featured as soloist in several concerts with the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, and performed in inner-city Philadelphia schools on a grant from the municipal government. In the summer of 1992, Hilary made her festival debut at the Skaneateles (N.Y.) Chamber Festival; in her 1993 reengagement, she is appearing both as chamber musician and as soloist with the festival orchestra under the direction of David Zinman.

Hilary began playing the violin a month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki program of Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory. For five years prior to entering the Curtis Institute, she studied with Klara Berkovich, a native of Odessa who taught for 25 years in the Leningrad School for the Musically Gifted. Hilary gave her first public performance at six; four years later she presented her first full recital. At nine, she was the youngest student ever to win the Peabody Honors Recital Auditions, and at ten she was the Grand Prize Winner in the 15-and-under division of the 1990 Concerto Soloists Competition in Philadelphia. In 1992, she won the Student Auditions of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has appeared on C-NBC TV’s “McLaughlin Show” in New York with Curtis director Gary Graffman, and she was featured playing the music of Mozart, Paganini, and Prokofiev on another nationally broadcast special on American prodigies, “The Gifted Ones,” hosted by George Plimpton.

Hilary Hahn resides in Baltimore, where she is a graduate of the external program of the Calvert School. She studies ballet at the Peabody Institute on weekends and spends her weekdays as an undergraduate at Curtis.

Concerts

Saturday, October 23, 1993