Violinist Peter Zazofsky enjoys a richly varied career that includes performances with many of the great orchestras in America and Europe, recitals in major music centers, recordings and tours as first violinist of the Muir String Quartet.Â
A native of Boston, Zazofsky studied with Joseph Silverstein before entering the Curtis Institute, where he studied with Ivan Galamian. Following graduation in 1977, he won Third Prize in the Wieniawski Competition in Poland, and First Prize in the 1979 Montreal International Violin Competition (the only American to win this award). The next year, he won Second Prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium.
Since then, he has performed repeatedly with the Boston Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, who also featured him on tour in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has toured the United States as guest soloist of the Danish Radio Orchestra, and Israel with the Haifa Symphony and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Further appearances with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Symphonies of Toronto, Minnesota and Montreal have brought acclaim for his collaborations with maestros Tennstedt, Ozawa, Onnandy, Zinman and Charles Dutoit, among others.
Long committed to music of our time, Peter Zazofsky has given first performances of works written for him by composers in Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Spain. He recently recorded music by Carbon, Chumbley and McKinley in Warsaw, and the Concerti of Frederic Van Rossum in Brussels. With the Muir Quartet, he has introduced new quartets by the American composers Joan Tower, Richard Danielpour, Ezra Laderman and Lukas Foss. He holds the position of Associate Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at Boston University.
