Nurit Pacht
Violin
Violinist Nurit Pacht was selected as one of the “Stars of the Year 2000” by Le Monde de la Musique and since then her career has blossomed with appearances in London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Moscow’s Great Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, The People’s Hall of China in Beijing and at Ravinia’s Rising Stars Series. Chosen by director Robert Wilson to be the featured musician in his multi-media piece Relative Light featuring solo violin works by John Cage and J.S. Bach, Nurit is equally at home in the standard repertoire as in the contemporary.
Last season, Nurit performed as soloist in collaboration with the dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones in one of Europe’s greatest cathedrals, the Duomo in Milan as well as at Kennedy Center and on tour in many U.S. capitals with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company culminating in performances at the Lincoln Center Summer Festival. She is now in her third season serving as the artistic director of the Alliance Players, a dynamic group of musicians who perform innovative programs in New York City.
Nurit performed in duo recitals with Philip Glass playing the composer’s works for violin and piano. She commissioned and premiered works from other leading composers including, Michael Hersch, Noam Sheriff, Annie Gosfield and Octavio Vazquez.
Nurit has toured as soloist with the Israeli Chamber Orchestra. She also performed the world premiere of Noam Sheriff’s Violin Concerto Dibrot, a work dedicated to her, with the Israeli Contemporary Players in a radio broadcast from Jerusalem and in the Contemporary Music Festival in Tel Aviv. Nurit was also the soloist on a tour of China with the Young Israel Philharmonic, performing in the major concert venues of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In the United States she has been a soloist with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Des Moines Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Alliance Players, American Youth Symphony and Santa Rosa Symphony. In Italy she performed with the Filarmonica di Roma, in Poland and Germany with the Wroclaw Chamber Orchestra, with most of the major orchestras of Romania including the Georges Enesco Philharmonic and with the National Symphony of Columbia.
In the spring of 1996, immediately following the cease-fire, she concertized in six of the worst war-devastated cities of Bosnia to enthusiastic audiences of the three ethnic minorities, with the sponsorship of the United Nations and the European Mozart Foundation. At the invitation of the European Commission she also performed on the occasion of the inauguration of the European Monetary Union in Bruxelles.
She was heard at the festivals of Santa Fe, Mecklenberg Vorpommern, Divonne, Stresa, Kfar Blum, George Crumb, Tartini, Monadnock and, at the invitation of Christoph Eschenbach, performed in Ravinia’s Rising Stars Series. One of her live performances from Wigmore Hall was released by Nimbus records.
Nurit Pacht grew up in Texas and made her first solo public appearance on national television at the age of 12. In 1990, at age seventeen, she made her U.S. solo debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and has since won top prizes in international competitions in Europe and the United States, including the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Switzerland.
She plays on a violin made by P. Guarneri in 1750.
