Founder and Artistic Director of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (www.oicmf.org) in the Pacific Northwest, Aloysia Friedmann’s broad ranging career has included national and international tours, performances with New York’s most prestigious musical ensembles including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and a special onstage role on Broadway alongside Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice. The New York Times praised her “fiery spirit” after her Carnegie Recital Hall debut.
Recent and upcoming festival performances include Amelia Island, Cactus Pear, Green Music, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Strings in the Mountains, Sun Valley Summer Symphony, and San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival, performing with musicians including Peter Schickele, William Preucil, Chee-Yun, Alisa Weilerstein, Gabriel Kahane, Lucy Shelton, the Miró Quartet and Lynn Harrell. Aloysia Friedmann is featured as both performer and producer on several festival recordings. Chamber Music America recognized Ms. Friedmann’s artistic leadership with its 2008 CMAcclaim Award and most recently she was invited to be on the 2011 CMA National Conference Committee.
In Houston, Ms. Friedmann is Associate Concertmaster for the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and also was Acting Concertmaster for Houston Grand Opera’s world premiere performances of Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair. She has taught as an Affiliate Artist of Viola and Violin at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. Ms. Friedmann graduated from The Juilliard School and also studied at the University of Washington. She is married to concert pianist Jon Kimura Parker and they have a daughter, Sophia Keila. Aloysia Friedmann plays on a Grancino violin and a Grancino viola. The violin was made in 1695 in Milan and the viola, circa 1675, was once owned by British composer and violist Rebecca Clarke.
