About this Artist

Seventeen-year-old violinist and composer Ezra Shcolnik performed his own composition at age 12 with the Performance Santa Fe Orchestra. Ezra has twice been a finalist for an ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Award. His music has been performed at the Cleveland Institute of Music Young Composers Program, the Peabody Institute, and at various venues in Santa Fe and Los Angeles. Ezra has studied composition with Thomas Kotcheff at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Composer Fellowship Program, Vera Ivanova at the Colburn School, Karola Obermüller at the University of New Mexico, and Judah Adashi at the Peabody Institute. This is his second year in the Composer Fellowship Program.

As a violinist, Ezra soloed with the New Mexico Philharmonic in May 2018 as a first-place winner of the Music Guild of New Mexico’s Young Artists’ Competition. He has attended the Aspen Music Festival and School for two summers, including one as a New Horizons Fellow. Ezra performs with the Colburn Orchestra and the Colburn Academy Virtuosi. He has been a member of the PSF Orchestra for five holiday seasons, most recently serving as Associate Concertmaster. Ezra is in his fifth year at the Colburn Music Academy, where he studies with Robert Lipsett. He plays on an 1825 Giovanni Francesco Pressenda violin, on generous loan from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.