Kevin Lawrence

Kevin Lawrence is the string chair at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Artistic Director of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, which he founded in 2005 in Burlington, Vermont (www.gmcmf.org).

Praised for his “vibrant intensity,” (The Times, London) and playing “supremely convincing in its vitality,” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) he has consistently elicited superlative responses for his performances throughout the United States and Europe. His assertive style and strong musical personality have thrilled audiences at Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and in Houston, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Rome, Prague, Bucharest, Sofia, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam, where the Dutch press described him as “simply miraculous.” (Het Vaderland).

Lawrence has performed as soloist with the Charlotte, Richmond, Anchorage, Shreveport, Greensboro, Charlottesville and Waco symphonies, as well as the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria. He has premiered sonatas by contemporary American compositional voices Laura Kaminsky and Judith Shatin, and chamber works by Michael Rothkopf and Lawrence Dillon. His release of the complete violin works of the American composer Arthur Foote on the New World label was “highly recommended” as “beautifully played” by the Washington Post, and heard on the Ken Burns series “Not for Ourselves Alone,” broadcast on PBS; his second CD of American violin sonatas, recently released by New World, was hailed as “vital playing” and “a labor of love” by ClassicsToday.com. He is also heard with renowned flutist Carol Wincenc on a recording of American flute quintets released by Bridge Records, and named as 2012 Critics Choice by American Record Guide.

Kevin Lawrence received his musical education at The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Ivan Galamian and Margaret Pardee. While at Juilliard he also studied chamber music with Felix Galimir and continued his chamber music study with Josef Gingold at the Meadowmount School in Westport, New York. Appointed to the Meadowmount faculty by Ivan Galamian in 1980, he taught there each summer until 1994, when he became the Dean of the Killington Music Festival in Vermont. After serving as Killington’s Artistic Director from 1997 through 2004, he founded the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Lawrence has given master classes throughout the United States, and in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Russia, Israel, China, Korea, Thailand, Costa Rica and Venezuela.

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2017: May