Gwendolyn Masin - Violin

Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Gwendolyn began her musical education at the age of five with Coosje Wijzenbeek in Hilversum. Within her first year of schooling, Gwendolyn gave her first public performance in the Franz Liszt Akademie in Budapest. When she was six, her family moved to Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, where Gwendolyn continued her violin studies under the tutelage of her Hungarian born mother, Maria Kelemen. By the following year she had become the youngest violinist to receive a Grade 5 Diploma with honours in South Africa.

Aged ten, her family settled in Dublin and she was accepted in the Conservatory of Music and Drama at the Institute of Technology. She studied here in the class of her father, Professor Ronald Masin, until 1996.

Introduced to the Irish public at her debut recital in the National Concert Hall in Dublin at the age of eleven, she also performed live in the same year on the The Late Late Show and has since been a regular guest on TV and radio productions in various countries. Between 1990 and 1996 she received additional lessons from Herman Krebbers in Amsterdam. In August of 1996, with the support of a Swiss Government Scholarship, Gwendolyn began her virtuoso diploma studies with Professor Igor Ozim at the University of Arts in Berne and took her Concert exam here in July 2000. She had received her Licenciate of the Royal Schools of Music (U.K.) one year prior.

Gwendolyn commenced her post graduate studies at the University of Music in Zurich/Winterthur, Switzerland, in the class of Ana Chumachenco and Professor Zakhar Bron and received her Performance Degree with high honours from the University of Music in Lübeck, Germany in November 2006 under the guidance of Shmuel Ashkenasi, with whom she currently studies.

Gwendolyn is laureate of the South African “Violin Days” competition where she received the first prize, has won most of the Irish Feis Ceoil Junior and Senior category prizes, was a finalist in the Baroness Jordens violin competition in The Hague, the Netherlands and, as the Dutch representative at the Global Stipends Awards, she received the International Music Award. Amongst the distinctions she has received are the Associated Board of Music Grant (U.K.), the title of Young Soloist of the Year (Switzerland) the Elsy Meyer Bursary (Switzerland) and the Freundeskreis Musikhochschule Zürich/Winterthur Prize (Switzerland). In May of 2002, Gwendolyn was nominated for “The Outstanding Young Persons Of Switzerland” award for her achievements and she received support for her work in September of the same year from the Swiss Foundation for Promotion of the Interpretative Arts for her exemplary performances. The Arts Council of Ireland has continuously supported Gwendolyn for the last number of years for various projects.

Gwendolyn has performed extensively in Europe and South Africa and has played as a soloist with various orchestras, including the Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, the Bernese Symphony Orchestra with whom she recorded for Swiss national radio, the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra of Moscow, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland with whom she recorded for live radio, the RTE Concert Orchestra of Ireland with whom she recorded for national radio, the Hibernian Orchestra, the Savaria Orchestra of Hungary and the Young European Strings Chamber Orchestra.

She has performed at numerous festivals such as the West Cork International Chamber Music Festival, Prussia Cove in England, the Encuentro Santander festival in Spain, the Ars Longa festival in Moscow, Russia, the Schiermonnikoog Festival in the Netherlands, the Festival Internazionale della Musica Linari in Tuscany, Italy, and was invited by Maxim Vengerov to play at his public masterclasses in Dublin, Ireland.

Aged 21, Gwendolyn penned a manuscript on teaching methods and violin technique, entitled “Michaela’s Music House”. The work is a mixture of fairy tales and fantasy stories, based on practised facts and written in a comprehensive form for children and their parents. The book is the first of its kind, encompassing both fiction and pedagogical impulses as it does. Gwendolyn revised and expanded the book in 2006 for which renowned musicians such as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yefim Bronfman, Maria Kliegel, Herman Krebbers, Gerhard Mantel, Igor Ozim, Martti Rousi, David Takeno, Maxim Vengerov and David Zinman wrote glowing reports. “Michaela’s Music House”, which is approved by European String Teachers’ Association, will be published in 2007 and will be available throughout Europe.

Gwendolyn is founder and artistic director of the multidisciplinary series entitled "In Search of Lost Time" and the “Gaia Chamber Music Festival”. The former, which opened in Dublin in 2004, encompassed five events at four different locations such as the Spiegel Tent (Fringe Festival), and is currently in development. The latter was held for the first time in Stuttgart in 2006, bringing together 15 internationally acclaimed musicians for one week of concerts, and will take place again in 2007. In 2007, Gwendolyn was appointed artistic director of the Carrick-on-Shannon Music Festival in Ireland.

Various compositions have been dedicated to Gwendolyn, many of which she has premiered, such as Eric Sweeney’s “Mandala”, numerous works from the Dutch composer Martijn Voorvelt and the Swiss composer Don Li, and will give the first performance of a violin concerto written for her by John Buckley in 2008.

She recorded for the Tonus Music Label in 2004, the CD is entitled 15 Squared.

She was the featured artist on the soundtrack to Franticek Klossner’s film “Localisation”, which was shown in Switzerland and Liechtenstein in the summer of 2004.

You can visit her website at www.gwendolynmasin.com.