About Elicia
Violinist Elicia Silverstein, 2020 winner of the BBC Music Magazine Best Newcomer Award has garnered praise on the international stage for her bold, nuanced and insightful performances of repertoire ranging from the 17th to the 21st century. Equally at home as a performer on historical and modern instruments, as a soloist with orchestra, giving recitals and playing chamber music, her “wonderfully inventive” playing (The Strad) and her “highly emotionally intelligent” (Gramophone) approach to music making distinguish Silverstein as one of the most important musical voices of her generation.
Silverstein is passionate about creating concert and recording programs that “trace the mental circuits and capture and link points distant from each other in place and time,” (cit. Italo Calvino). Notably, her solo album, “The Dreams and Fables I Fashion,” released by Rubicon Classics in 2018 to international critical acclaim, brought together works of the 17th century stylus phantasticus with Bach, Berio and Sciarrino. Parallel to her commitment to early music and historical performance practice, Silverstein has championed the creation of new works and has given world premieres of works written for her by notable composers including Marcello Panni and Gilberto Cappelli. Her love for chamber music has led her to collaborate with artists such as keyboardists Francesco Cera, Marco Mencoboni, Richard Egarr, Robert Levin and Patrick Ayrton, violinists Enrico Onofri, Marco Bianchi and Marco Serino, members of the Ebène Quartet, and cellist Mauro Valli and lutenist Michele Passotti, with whom she founded the ensemble Harmonical Miscellany in 2016.
In recent seasons, Silverstein has performed as a soloist with ensembles including The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Philharmonic Orchestra of North Macedonia, The Ruse State Opera Orchestra, The Kölner Akademie, Barokkanerne, Ensemble Odyssee, the Orquestra Clássica de Espinho, The Bulgarian State Opera Orchestra (Ruse), Cathedra Camerata, Tesserae Baroque, and the Steinitz Bach Players in prestigious halls such as the Washington National Cathedral, where she was Artist-in-Residence during the 2019-2020 concert season, Concertgebouw Brugge, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Teatro Massimo di Palermo, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and Kings College Chapel. She regularly performs in important European festivals, such as Ravenna Festival, Baroque at the Edge, ZAMUS Early Music Festival, Larvik Barokk, Gloger Festpillene, Festival Duni, Brighton Early Music Festival, the Festival Internacional de Música de Espinho and Bologna Modern. Silverstein’s performances have been broadcast on RAI Radio3 Suite’s La Stanza della musica, WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase, and BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.
Born in New York, Silverstein began playing the violin at the age of two. After graduating from the Juilliard School’s pre-college division, she continued her studies at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles as a student of Robert Lipsett and Arnold Steinhardt. She was selected to perform as a soloist with the Colburn Orchestra on numerous occasions. In 2013, Silverstein moved to Europe as the recipient of a Netherland-America Foundation Fulbright grant, earning her Master of Music degree cum laude at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam under the supervision of Vera Beths, Anner Bylsma and Lucy van Dael. Silverstein is dedicated to sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm for all things musical with future generations of musicians. She holds an interim position as violin professor at the Conservatorio di Musica Umberto Giordana in Foggia, Italy for the 2023-2024 academic year, is an affiliate faculty member at the University of Delaware, where she teaches violin, chamber music and historical performance, and regularly gives masterclasses and workshops in conservatories throughout Europe and the United States. In 2020, she launched a historical performance program at the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, the first of its kind amongst American youth orchestra organizations. Silverstein plays a J.B.Vuillaume violin crafted in Paris in 1856 (copy of a Guarnieri del Gesù) and on bows made by René-William Groppe, Ralph Ashmead and Andrea Proietti. She resides in Italy.
