American violinist PAMELA FRANK has established an outstanding international reputation across an unusually varied range of performing activity. In addition to her extensive schedule of engagements with prestigious orchestras throughout the world and her recitals on the leading concert stages, she is regularly sought after as a chamber music partner by today’s most distinguished soloists and ensembles. The breadth of this accomplishment and her consistently high level of musicianship were recognized in 1999 with the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists.

During the 1999/2000 season she makes appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the NHK Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich), and the Toronto Symphony, among other ensembles. She tours extensively with her father, pianist Claude Frank, giving recitals with him in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, as well as in Japan and Europe. She also joins the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra led by Yuri Temirkanov as soloist for its American tour in the spring of 2000, including a Carnegie Hall concert.
Among the highlights of her other engagements in recent seasons have been concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Czech Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, l’Orchestre National de France, the New York Philharmonic, l’Orchestre de Paris, and the San Francisco Symphony. She has performed under many esteemed conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Leonard Slatkin and, most regularly, Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman. Frank made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in April 1995 and she gave an acclaimed Beethoven Sonata cycle with Claude Frank at London’s Wigmore Hall in December 1997. She has appeared at numerous festivals in Europe and the United States, including the Aldeburgh Festival, the Berlin Festival, the Blossom Festival, the Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Tanglewood, and Verbier.

Her passion for chamber music continues to find a variety of outlets. In addition to her partnership with her father, she works regularly with pianist Peter Serkin. Her other frequent collaborators, drawn from a large group of chamber music colleagues, include Yo-Yo Ma, Tabea Zimmermann, and Alexander Simionescu.

In the recording studio, the violinist has made several discs for London/Decca, including the Dvorák Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic, Mozart Concertos with the Tonhalle Orchestra under David Zinman, the Brahms Sonatas with Peter Serkin, and a Schubert album with Claude Frank. She has also recorded the Beethoven sonata cycle for MusicMasters with Claude Frank, which recently became available as a complete set. For Sony Classical, she has recorded the Chopin Piano Trio with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, and she is featured on the soundtrack to the film Immortal Beloved.

As a youth, the New York City-born Pamela Frank frequently played chamber music both at home and before the public with her musician parents, noted pianists Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir. She began her violin studies at age 5 and after 11 years as a pupil of Shirley Givens continued her musical education with Szymon Goldberg and Jaime Laredo. In 1985 she formally launched her career with the first of her four appearances with Alexander Schneider and the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1988, she graduated the following year from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She is newly married to Alexander Simionescu and they make their home in the New York area.

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