Faculty

For more than fifty years, Lewis Kaplan has dedicated his career to performing as a violinist – both soloist and chamber musician. He is an internationally renowned teacher, performer and the Founder and Director of the Bach Virtuosi Festival in Portland, Maine.

Known as an extraordinarily gifted teacher with a remarkable talent for helping to build careers for his highly gifted students, Mr. Kaplan teaches at The Juilliard School, the Mannes School of Music – The New School, the Bowdoin Festival and is a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music in London and an honorary professor at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music in China. He has presented master classes at most of the well-known conservatories and schools worldwide, including the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria where he taught for 20 years.

Lewis Kaplan has served on the juries of numerous international competitions, including the Queen Elisabeth in Brussels, Fritz Kreisler (Vienna), Mozart International (Salzburg), Japan International (Tokyo), Sendai, Joachim (Hanover), Naumburg and Concert Artists Guild (New York) and Henryk Szeryng International (Monaco).

In 2009, Lewis Kaplan was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany by the President of Germany. He was the holder of the William Schuman Scholar’s Chair at The Juilliard School in 2010-11.

In addition to performances with the Aeolian Chamber Players internationally, he has appeared as violin soloist and as a conductor in Europe, Asia, and North America. He has performed as well with Michael Rabin, Jaime Laredo, Szymon Goldberg, Ruggiero Ricci, pianists Yefim Bronfman, Richard Goode, Rudolf Firkusny, Murray Perahia, Horacio Gutierrez and many others.