Gwendolyn Masin – Violin
Born in Amsterdam, Gwendolyn began her musical education at the age of five and in the same year gave her first public performance at the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest. Aged eleven she performed on the Late Late Show and has since been a regular guest on TV and radio productions in various countries. Her teachers have included her parents, Maria Kelemen and Ronald Masin, as well as Herman Krebbers, Igor Ozim, Ana Chumachenco, Zakhar Bron and Shmuel Ashkenasi. She has won many prestigious prizes and awards in South Africa, the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Gwendolyn performs extensively in Europe and South Africa and has played as a soloist with orchestras such as the Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, the Bernese Symphony Orchestra, the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra (Moscow) and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Festival appearances include the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Prussia Cove, Internationaal Kamermuziekfestival Schiermonnikoog and Festival Internazionale della Musica Linari. Numerous compositions have been dedicated to and premiered by Gwendolyn including works by Eric Sweeney, Don Li and John Buckley.
She is founder and artistic director of the multidisciplinary series In Search of Lost Time and of the Gaia Chamber Music Festival. In 2007 she was appointed as artistic director of the Carrick Water Music Festival in Ireland.
A pedagogue since her teenage years, Gwendolyn’s book on violin teaching Michaela’s Music House will be published Europe wide in 2008.
Gwendolyn plays a Lorenzo Carcassi violin (Florence 1761).