About Sylvia
PROGRAM BIO
Described as “a prodigious composer and improviser” by Strad Magazine and an “adorable and formidable” violinist by the Illinois Times, 13-year-old Sylvia Pine has won First Prize in more than 40 international competitions as a composer, violinist, and singer. In 2022, she toured as violin soloist with the Tel Aviv Soloists and in 2024, she appeared with the Syracuse Orchestra. Since making her radio debut in 2018 on the nationally syndicated show Performance Today, she has given solo performances in Carnegie Hall (New York), Musikverein (Vienna), and the Royal Albert Hall (London). She frequently gives sonata recitals around the Chicago area with pianist Jeffrey Panko.
Sylvia has composed numerous works for instrumental ensembles, solo strings, and voice. Last season, Sylvia’s string orchestra work “Rising Storm” was performed by six youth orchestras across the U.S. She is currently the youngest member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Young Composers Initiative, and her new string quartet was premiered at Symphony Center on May 31 by members of the Civic Orchestra. She has performed her own arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner for the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Cubs.
The youngest Academy Fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago where she studies with Almita Vamos and Davis King, Sylvia will celebrate her 2,800th consecutive day of practicing on October 23. She has attended numerous chamber music camps including the Guadalajara International Music Festival, Amherst Early Music’s Baroque Performance Academy, Credo, Heifetz, and Point CounterPoint. She also studies piano, baroque and renaissance violin, medieval rebec and vielle, Scottish fiddling, and electric rock violin. Trained in Alice Kanack’s Creative Ability Development method of classical improvisation, Sylvia leads weekly Improv Club gatherings for her peers.
Sylvia’s modern violin was made for her by Peter Seman, a copy of the 1742 “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat” Guarneri del Gesu played by her mother. Her baroque violin is by Gabriela Guadalajara, on generous loan from her patron.
Sylvia is a lifelong home schooler. In addition to music, she enjoys reading, writing fiction, exploring nature, drawing, and designing original characters and species. She is vegan and loves all animals, and she is particularly passionate about rescuing hurt city pigeons and raising money and awareness for the pangolin, the most trafficked mammal on earth. sylviapine.com
UPDATED OCTOBER 2024
EARLY MUSIC BIO
13-year-old baroque violinist Sylvia Pine has won First Prize in a number of international competitions including the Bach with a View International Young Artist Competition, the World Classical Music Awards Baroque Competition, the London Young Musician Baroque Period Competition, the Charleston International Music Competition Baroque Music Competition, and the International Great Composers Competition's Best Bach Performance, Best Vivaldi Performance, Music of the 18th Century, and Music of the 17th Century competitions.
After beginning violin at age two, Sylvia began using a baroque bow at age four, learning repertoire from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras with historically informed interpretations curated by John Mark Rozendaal and Rachel Barton Pine. At age seven, she began playing baroque violin, adding renaissance violin and rebec at age eight and vielle at age 10.
In October 2024, Sylvia gave the U.S. period instrument premiere for WFMT of a newly discovered string trio by Mozart, collaborating with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and cellist Craig Trompeter. She frequently performs classical period chamber music using a transitional bow and improvises her own cadenzas and embellishments in concertos by Mozart. In 2023, she joined violinist Rachel Barton Pine for an encore during a concert for Apollo's Fire, performing a duet by Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
In December 2024, Sylvia will join Trio Settecento in two concerts for Milwaukee's Early Music Now, performing Christmas concertos and noel suites. She has previously performed this repertoire with Trio Settecento for OurConcerts.live and with cellist Anna Steinhoff. She has appeared as soloist in Vivaldi concertos with the Davis High School Baroque Ensemble in California and with modern ensembles the Tel Aviv Soloists in Israel and the Syracuse Orchestra in New York.
In summer 2024, Sylvia attended the Amherst Early Music Festival's Baroque Performance Academy, studying with Julie Andrijeski and Kathryn Cok; the Northwestern Bach Academy, studying with Nancy Wilson and Leah Nelson; and Seattle Historical Arts for Kids' Medieval Songs and Stories. She has previously participated in baroque interpretation classes at Northwestern University’s Strings Academy, baroque ornamentation classes with Patrick O'Malley, early music improvisation classes with Tina Chancey, and has had supplemental lessons with period instrument specialists Brandi Berry Benson, Elizabeth Blumenstock, David Douglass, Shulamit Kleinerman, Allison Nyquist, John Mark Rozendaal, Jory Vinikour, and Jeri-Lou Zike.
Her original composition "Saltarello No. 1: Call of the Fairies" has been performed by Utopia Early Music in Salt Lake City and at Camlann Medieval Village near Seattle.
Sylvia has studied 18th Century Scottish fiddling since age four, under the tutelage of John Turner, David Gardner, and Tim Macdonald. From 2020-2023, she took many online classes through Seattle Historical Arts for Kids including singing, dancing, composing, and percussion, and from 2021-2023, she studied recorder with Miyo Aoki and participated in Voices of Music's Junior Recorder Society.
Sylvia plays a baroque violin by Gabriella Guadalajara, 2020, on generous loan from her patron, with baroque bows by Michelle Speller and a classical bow by Daniel Latour.
UPDATED OCTOBER 2024