Margaret Batjer, violin

Margaret Batjer made her first solo appearance at age fifteen with the Chicago Symphony in Gian Carlo Menotti's violin concerto. Since then, she has been re-engaged by the Chicago Symphony and has appeared with a succession of major orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Seattle Symphony, the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the San Jose Symphony under the direction of George Cleve, and the Dallas Symphony conducted by Gunther Herbig.  She has served as concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 1998.

Ms. Batjer has appeared as a soloist throughout Europe with orchestras including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Halle Symphony Orchestra at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the last under the direction of Claus Peter Flor.

Equally respected as a chamber musician, Ms. Batjer has performed regularly at the Marlboro Music Festival and on tours with "Music from Marlboro."  She has appeared at the Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest, the La Jolla Summerfest, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and the Naples and Cremona festivals in Italy.  Maurizio Pollini invited the Accardo Quartet, of which Ms. Batjer is a member, to perform at the Salzburg Festival in 1995 and 1999, programs which were repeated in the spring of 2001 in New York under the auspices of Carnegie Hall.  She has recorded the Bach Concerto for two violins in D minor with Salvatore Accardo, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for Philips and more recently with Hilary Hahn and LACO, directed by Jeffrey Kahane, for Deutsche Grammophon [more details].  She has also made numerous chamber music recordings on the EMI, Nuova Era, BMG, and Dynamic labels.

Ms. Batjer graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Ivan Galamian and David Cerone.  Throughout her career, she has won numerous prizes, including the G.B. Dealey Award in Dallas.  In the spring of 2000, she and Jeffrey Kahane inaugurated LACO's chamber music series by performing the complete cycle of Beethoven's sonatas for violin and piano at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles.  The audience will have another opportunity to experience their extraordinary musical partnership in October 2003 when Ms. Batjer and Mr. Kahane perform Brahms' complete sonatas for violin and piano in LACO's Bravo Brahms! recital.