On Saturday’s broadcast, we feature 17-year-old violinist Masha Lakisova of Vernon Hills. Masha studies violin at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division with Li Lin and Itzhak Perlman.
She has had the privilege of performing in esteemed concert venues in the United States and around the world. Masha has appeared as a soloist with more than 20 orchestras worldwide such as Kremerata Baltica, HEMU, Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, and Lake Forest Symphony. She was the first recipient of the Arkady Fomin Scholarship at the North Shore Chamber Music Festival.
Masha has won top prizes at many competitions including First Prize at the 2018 Tibor Junior International Violin Competition, Second Prize at the 2015 International Andrea Postacchini Violin Competition, was named a 2017 National YoungArts Winner, finalist at the 2013 International Louis Spohr Violin Competition as well as the winner of the Walgreens National Concerto Competition and DePaul Concerto Festival.
From 2011-2017, Masha was a student at Midwest Young Artists Conservatory where she served as concertmaster in three orchestras and played first violin in four chamber ensembles. Her chamber groups won the Gold Medal at the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition in 2016
and 2017.
Masha previously studied with Grigory Kalinovsky, Drew Lecher, and Larisa Zhizhin. Masha has taken lessons and participated in masterclasses with such prominent virtuosi as Ana Chumachenko, Anne Sophie Mutter, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Miriam Fried, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Augustin Hadelich, and Ida Kavafian. She has collaborated with Vadim Gluzman, Pavel Vernikov, Svetlin Roussev, Ilya Kaler, Yossif Ivanov, Masumi Per Rostad, Rose Armbrust Griffin, Ani Aznavoorian, Mark Kosower, Christopher O’Riley, David Schrader, and the Ariel Quartet.
Masha is the proud recipient of a magnificent violin by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda (Turin 1845) on loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago.