Jaime Laredo

About

In his forty years before the public, Mr Laredo has enraptured millions with passionate and polished performances of rare style and elegance. As a soloist, he has played with over one hundred international orchestras, including the Boston and Chicago Symphonies, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the London Symphony and the Royal Philharmonic, with Barenboim, Mata, Mehta, Ormandy, Slatkin, Stokowsky and Szell. He has performed in recital at the finest international music centres and festivals, and has collaborated with many eminent artists of the century, including Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, Mstislav Rostropovich, Rudolf Serkin and Isaac Stern.

As a conductor, Mr Laredo's regular appearances include the Baltimore, Hartford, Houston, Montreal, New Jersey, Ottawa, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle and Utah Symphonies. His twenty-year relationship with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra has resulted in several European and two US tours, including sold-out Carnegie Hall appearances. A former "Distinguished Artist" by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Mr Laredo has conducted the orchestra in Minnesota, on tour, and advised the chamber music series. Over recent seasons, he has led the Orchestra of St Luke's on premiere tours to Japan and Europe. On record, he has over forty discs on ten labels, and has received a Grammy Award and Deutsche Schallplatten Prize. As an administrator, he directs New York's "Chamber Music at the 92nd Street Y" series, one of the most important forums for chamber music performance in the US. His continuing interest in contemporary music has led to his premiering works by Haflidi Halgrimsson, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Ezra Laderman, Arvo Pärt, Ned Rorem and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

Born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Jaime Laredo began playing the violin at the age of five and gave a full recital at age eight. Three years later he made his orchestral debut with the San Francisco Symphony, prompting the San Francisco Examiner to proclaim: "In the 1920's it was Yehudi Menuhin; in the '30's it was Isaac Stern; and last night it was Jaime Laredo." Over the next few years he studied with Josef Gingold and Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute, and with the great conductor George Szell. In May 1959, at the age of seventeen, Mr Laredo won first prize in the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, becoming the youngest winner in the history of this prestigious competition.

His festival appearances have included Tanglewood, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Aspen and the Hollywood Bowl. In Europe, he has appeared with the London and BBC Symphonies, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and the Helsinki Philharmonic. Mr Laredo has also performed at the United Nations and at the White House, for Presidents Johnson and Carter. In his native Bolivia, he holds the status of national hero, with a stadium named for him in La Paz and commemorative set of twelve postage stamps issued in his name.

As a member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, which he formed in 1976 with his wife, cellist Sharon Robinson, and pianist Joseph Kalichstein, Mr Laredo performs regularly in the music capitals of North and South America, Europe, Australia and the Far East.

Mr Laredo's extensive discography includes recordings of the complete Bach Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard with Glenn Gould, and the Beethoven "Triple" Concerto with Rudolf Serkin and Leslie Parnas, both on Sony Classical. Mr Laredo's Sony Classical recording of the three Brahms piano quartets with Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma, and Emanuel Ax won the 1991 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Recording. Other recent Sony Classical releases include the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante and Concertone with Cho-Liang Lin and the English Chamber Orchestra, and the two Brahms string sextets with Isaac Stern, Cho-Liang Lin, Michael Tree, Yo-Yo Ma and Sharon Robinson.

The 1992 release of the Faure Piano Quartets with Ax-Stern-Laredo-Ma received a Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Music Recording. In 1994, Sony Classical released a disc of piano quartets of Schumann and Beethoven with Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, and most recently released the Boccherini String Quartet in E Major, Op. 13, No. 5, with Isaac Stern, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma and Sharon Robinson, plus Mozart Piano Quartets with Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax.

During 1995-96, Mr Laredo opened the season with conductor/soloist engagements with the Baltimore and San Diego Symphonies. He performed "Harold in Italy" with Hugh Wolff in Grant Park, which Mr Laredo and Mr Wolff will repeat with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in December 1996. Mr Laredo led the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie on a tour of the US, with engagements including Ravinia, Tanglewood, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and the Hollywood Bowl. In the summer of 1996, amongst extensive tours of recitals and orchestral engagements with the Trio, he appeared at major summer festivals and conduct concerts with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra.

The 1996-97 season saw Jaime Laredo conduct/play with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the National Arts Orchestra in Ottawa, the St Louis, New World, and Dallas Symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Brandenburg Ensemble on a nationwide tour. For some of these engagements Mr Laredo is a soloist himself and on other occasions, his soloists include Isaac Stern, Leila Josefowicz and Andreas Haefliger. The Trio, celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, will give a world premiere of David Ott's Triple Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony as well as further performances of the Zwilich Triple with the National Symphony and Leonard Slatkin as well as a West Coast tour with Pinchas Zukerman. In duos, Mr Laredo performs from West to East, from Los Angeles to New York, and with Sharon Robinson in orchestral engagements which include the Illinois, San Antonio and Louisville Symphonies.

When Mr and Mrs Laredo are not on tour, they divide their time between their home in Vermont and their New York City apartment. They are active members of Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament and Musicians Against Nuclear Arms.

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