Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. France’s Le Figaro calls his playing “beautiful, the kind of music-making that gives one true pleasure.” He has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corcoran Gallery, Het Doelen, L’Octogone, Seoul National University, the Teatro San Jos and the Museo de Bellas Artes. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain, Korea and Canada. Highlights include performing a cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival Dei in Spain and all of the Beethoven sonatas at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall. His recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas with pianist Phillip Bush has been met with great acclaim.
Mr. Berofsky was the first violinist of the Chester String Quartet for fifteen years. The quartet was acclaimed as “one of the country’s best young string quartets” by the Boston Globe. Tours took them throughout the Americas and Europe and the quartet members collaborated with such artists as Robert Mann, Arnold Steinhardt, Franco Gulli, members of the Alban Berg quartet, Andres Diaz, Eugene Istomin and Ruth Laredo. Some notable projects over the years included the complete cycles of the quartets by Beethoven and Dvorak, and numerous recordings by such composers as Mozart, Haydn, Barber, Porter, Piston, Kernis and Tenenbom. The Chester Quartet served as resident quartet at the University of Michigan and at Indiana University South Bend. Mr. Berofsky has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today and on the Canadian Broadcasting Company. His acclaimed recordings can be found on the Sony, Naxos, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels. Recent recital tours have taken him to Germany, Italy and Korea, and he was featured soloist on the 2009 NAXOS recording of music by Paul Fetler, performed by the Ann Arbor Symphony, including the debut recording of Fetler’s Concerto No. 2. His recording of the complete chamber music of Franz Xavier Mozart was released in 2013 on Equilibrium.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Mr. Berofsky was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers have included Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Glenn Dicterow, Lorand Fenyves and Elaine Richey. Mr. Berofsky is known for his commitment to teaching and is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and served as visiting Professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Detmold, Germany. He taught at the Meadowmount School of Music for many summers and is currently Chair of the String Department at the Chautauqua Institution. He is also on the faculty of the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Luby International Violin Symposium. He has given masterclasses throughout the world, including during several tours of Korea and a recent trip to China. He has also given classes at the Cleveland Institute, Oberlin, Eastman, the Peter de Grote festival in the Netherlands, Domaine Forget in Quebec, Interlochen, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the Conservatorio Palma Mallorca.
Mr. Berofsky’s interest in early music led him to perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period instruments, also making several recordings with them for the Sony label. He co-runs University of Michigan’s Baroque Chamber Orchestra with harpsichordist Joseph Gascho. With a strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti, Morton Subotnick, Paul Fetler and Bright Sheng. Mr. Berofsky is the Concertmaster and Artistic Advisor of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra.