Daring, versatile, charismatic and passionate, American violinist Robyn Bollinger is a young artist on the rise. Just out of conservatory, Ms. Bollinger is carving a career as a soloist and chamber musician. Already recognized for her musical creativity, rich tones, emotional depth, and technical mastery, she is a recipient of a prestigious 2016 Fellowship from the Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship Fund for her multimedia performance project entitled “CIACCONA: The Bass of Time,” which she began touring in 2018. Having made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut at age twelve, Ms. Bollinger has since performed with orchestras and at festivals nationwide, among them the Boston Pops, the Grand Tetons Music Festival Orchestra, and the music festivals of Aspen, Lake Champlain, Maui, Marlboro, and Rockport.
Summer 2018 performances announced to date include appearances at the Halcyon Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, and Orcas Island Music Festival.
Robyn Bollinger's 2018-19 season features a mix of solo and chamber music performances. Announced engagements include debuts with the symphony orchestras of Knoxville (Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto), Helena (Piazzolla, Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), Charleston (Paganini, Violin Concerto No. 1), and California (world premiere by composer-in-residence Katherine Balchwritten specifically for her). She makes a six-city tour of the East Coast with the Musicians from Marlboro that includes concerts at Connecticut's Greenwich Library Series, Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall in New York City, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society Series, the Smithsonian Museum's Freer Gallery in D.C., the Union College Concert Series in Schenectady, NY, and Boston's Isabella Steward Gardner Museum's Sunday Afternoon Series. Ms. Bollinger also performs in and around Boston with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble and the Grammy award-winning ensemble A Far Cry.
Highlights of Bollinger’s 2017-18 season included appearing as soloist with the Orchestra of Indian Hill (MA), Symphony in C (NJ), and the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, as a guest in a special concert for the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and in concert for Boston’s Music For Food concert series. Her tour of “CIACCONA: The Bass of Time,” a multi-media concert that tells the story of one of the oldest musical ideas, the repeating bass line, through solo violin music met with success at Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Emory University, National Sawdust (Brooklyn, NY) and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The Boston Globe praised “...she did more than just perform dauntingly difficult works by Biber, Bach, Bartok, and Berio. She melded them into an evening-length exploration of the ciaccona as such — a Baroque dance form that has morphed over the course of centuries.... Throughout the night, Bollinger’s technique proved equal to every challenge, with playing that was poised, precise, and musical” and The Boston Musical Intelligencer called her an engaging and original talent.”
Robyn Bollinger records for Crier Records. During the 2017-18 season, she released her debut solo CD and DVD, both titled “CIACCONA: The Bass of Time.” James Oestreich of The New York Times reviewed the CD, and selected her performance of Biber’s Sequenza VIII as one of “8 Best Classical Music Moments of the Week on YouTube,” writing: “It was the concept that drew me to the new CD, CIACONNA: The Bass of Time, from Crier Records, but it was the young violinist Robyn Bollinger who held me captive. Through solo works of Biber, Bach, Bartok and Berio, Ms. Bollinger explores the lineage of the chaconne or passacaglia, call it what you will, with its often obsessive focus on a bass figure.” As a member of A Far Cry, she recorded the Grammy nominated “Dreams and Prayers” and “Visions and Variations.” The all- premieres CD includes arrangements of works by Hildegard von Bingen and Ludwig van Beethoven and Osvaldo Golijov, as well as works by Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol written for and premiered by A Far Cry.
A sought-after collaborator, Ms. Bollinger is a popular figure on the chamber music stage, both as a member of the renowned, Grammy-nominated Boston-based ensemble A Far Cry, and for her work at Festivals, and on chamber music series. She has performed in Midori’s Music Sharing International Community Engagement Program “ICEP” in Japan, performed in recital in Japan’s Phoenix Hall, (Osaka), Oji Hall, (Tokyo), and Tokyo National Arts Center, and served as a Young Artist Fellow for Music for Food, the national musician-led initiative for local hunger relief. A former member of the Newman String Quartet, which took the silver medal at the 2007 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, she has also served as a member of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival's Young Trio in Residence (2015 - 2017). Collaborations include the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Jupiter Chamber Players at Lincoln Center, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Mistral Music, and with members of the Borromeo, Cleveland, Juilliard, Johannes, Lydian, Mendelssohn, and Pro Arte quartets, among others.
In addition to the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship, Ms. Bollinger’s talent has been recognized with numerous awards, among them an Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant from New England Conservatory for her ground-breaking "Project Paganini," a performance project featuring all twenty-four Paganini Caprices. Ms. Bollinger has received top prizes at many international competitions, among them the International Fritz Kreisler Competition in Vienna, the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in France, and the Louis Spohr International Competition in Germany. She has been specially recognized with prizes for her performances of Bach and Beethoven works at several competitions. A familiar figure on radio, Ms. Bollinger came to national attention through her 2014 residency on PRI’s “Performance Today” and several appearances on NPR's "From the Top."
Born in Philadelphia in 1991, Robyn Bollinger is a former recipient of the Laurence Lesser Presidential Scholarship at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, MA, where she received both her Bachelor’s and Master's degrees with honors. Ms. Bollinger’s former teachers include Miriam Fried, Soovin Kim, and Paul Kantor. From July 2013 to May 2017, Ms. Bollinger played a 1778 Joseph and Antonio Gagliano violin on generous loan from the Ravinia Festival's Steans Institute Instrument Bank. As of May 2017, she now performs on a beautiful 2017 violin made by the world-renowned luthier Samuel Zygmuntowicz, on loan from a private collection.
