About Victoria Voronyansky
Since her solo debut with the Manhattan Chamber Symphony at age 17, violist Victoria Voronyansky has distinguished herself as a recitalist, chamber musician, educator, and published author. She has appeared in major concert halls throughout the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Weill Recital Hall, and collaborated with Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and Gil Shaham.
In recent years she also performed at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Madison Square Garden in New York City, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and France. Her performance of the viola arrangement of the first violin sonata by Bach was broadcast on the National Radio of Finland, and her solo debut with the Manhattan Chamber Symphony of Hans Sitt’s Concertpiece was broadcast on WQXR radio station in New York as part of Robert Sherman’s Young Artists Showcase.
She was also featured on the Israeli television as part of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program, and in broadcasts on National Public Radio. A founding member of the Acacia String Quartet, Victoria was selected to participate in Isaac Stern’s Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall. The quartet won The Bärenreiter Urtext Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and the Young Artists International Competition, and performed live on WQXR in New York.
She also performed with the International Sejong Soloists when the group was featured as ensemble in residence at the Aspen Music Festival. Among her other chamber music credits are performances with The Perlman Chamber Players, an ensemble led by Itzhak Perlman, in the Mostly Mozart series at Lincoln Center, and as a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and Taos Chamber Music Festival.
Deeply involved in the field of education, Victoria designed a unique curriculum and taught an innovative course at the Juilliard School on performance and recording. Curriculum for the "Recording Project" course guided young violists, individually and as a group through the process of exploration and enhancement of their playing by using reflective listening and analysis techniques designed by Victoria, and taught by her during the course, which was made possible through Garett Albert Special Fund at The Juilliard School. In addition to this course, Victoria has given numerous presentations on topics ranging from injury prevention to physics of sound at Juilliard, which led to her first publication in the Journal of the American Viola Society. Victoria also served as a member of the violin and viola faculty at Mannes College of Music and Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance.
She continues to teach privately, and conducts long distance online courses on violin and viola performance, solfeggio, music theory, and recording. Students she has taught have gone on to major orchestras and conservatories, and current students hold principal positions in regional orchestras and are active in supporting their community by performing for charitable causes. Her other teaching credits include a fellowship with The Perlman Music Program and teaching at Les Rencontres Musicales Internationales des Graves Festival in Bordeaux, France.
She was a recipient of the Edward J. Noble Educational Fellowship at The Juilliard School, and was subsequently presented with Blanchette Rockefeller and Henry Alderman Trust Awards. Victoria studied viola with Heidi Castleman, Cynthia Phelps, and Pinchas Zuckerman, and chamber music with members of the Juilliard and American String Quartets, Felix Galimir and Isaac Stern. She holds a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.
Teaching Studio
“… the perfect person to help you prepare for your solo appearance is Victoria Voronyansky. She is a very experienced performer and one of the best viola teachers anyone could have; her teaching experience, besides conservatory level students and pre-college age, includes working with adult violists as well” Heidi Castleman, Viola Professor, The Juilliard School
Victoria Voronyansky has taught at the Juilliard School, Mannes College of Music, Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance, Columbia University, and the Perlman Music Program. Students she worked with have gone on to major conservatories, chamber ensembles, and top orchestras in the United States, Europe, South America and Asia.
Please visit Teaching Studio page for more information.
Group Classes
Over the years Victoria Voronyansky has conducted numerous group classes, seminars, and workshop both within her private studio, as well as at The Juilliard School, Chamber Music America conference and at the Perlman Music Program.
New Group Classes are in the works for late 2024 and 2025.
Please visit Group Classes page for more information on past classes.
Videos
In addition to performing and teaching, Victoria Voronyansky enjoys creating music videos, where in addition to performing on her instrument she also records, films, and edits the footage, featuring animation, green screen, videos she takes from variety of locations and even animals!
Recordings
Solo Viola Album by Victoria Voronyansky features works by Bach, Debussy, Albeniz, Biber, and Piazzolla as Red Viola and Victoria's sensitive performances tell a real-life fairytale of loss, recovery, renewal, and triumph!
Purchase CD $25.00
(Available only within 48 Continental United States: Free Standard USPS Shipping)
The Story Behind Anabasis Red Viola
It all began one snowy winter evening. I was still in high school, and visiting New York City when my viola was stolen, carried away by a homeless man, whom I can only remember by the scent he left behind as he disappeared. To this day, when I close my eyes I can still feel the cold, the snow on my skin, hear myself scream, and a choking sensation as I realized that this truly happened. My voice, my first love, my emotional outlet, gone forever, disappearing into the darkness of Manhattan.
The event became a painful secret, an occurrence I kept to myself. After numerous searches and appeals for help from the police, my hope for the viola's recovery slowly turned to despair, I didn't dare contemplate the possibility of it coming back into my life.
However, one person's kindness, inquisitiveness, and determination altered the course of this sad story, and changed my life in the most unexpected and profound way.
As the world was ringing in the New Year and the New Millennium, Ava Lindberg was pondering a question: what to do with a viola that came into her possession. While inspecting the instrument and the Russian-looking scarf the viola was wrapped in she began to realize there was more to the story then she had been told, and that the Red Viola was most likely a stolen instrument. Determined to find its owner, Ava traced it back through subtle clues to locate me, determined to reunite the Red Viola with her person.
A few days later, on January 8, 2000 I was awakened by a phone call. My mom was calling to tell me that she received a letter addressed to me, marked "personal and confidential". I asked her to go ahead and open it. After a long silence she said, "Your viola was found." The letter was from Ava Lindberg. It simply said that she had a viola, which she thought was stolen from me, and would like to discuss the future of the instrument.
Twelve years had passed since that fateful morning in Manhattan. Ava became a good friend, whom I came to admire and respect, and who also happens to be a wonderful pianist. Whenever we have the opportunity, we play chamber music together. I will be grateful to Ava for the rest of my life. The Red Viola has become a much cherished and loved companion in all my musical endeavors. This album is a reflection, a musical narrative, tracing the events of this real-life fairy tale. Each piece performed has a connection to the story, with works by J.S. Bach, Vieuxtemps, and Biber outlining the arc of emotional journey through loss and recovery, and pieces by Albeniz, Debussy, and Piazzolla devoted to the process of reconnecting and exploring technical and tonal boundaries of the Red Viola.
