Virginia Eskin

Virginia Eskin has performed as a soloist throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel. Her concert appearances include the San Francisco, Buffalo, Rochester, Louisville, Annapolis, New Hampshire, and Utah Symphony Orchestras; the Boston Classical; the Israel Sinfonietta the Sofia (Bulgaria) Philharmonic, and the Boston Pops. She has also performed as a soloist with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center and the Sedalia (Mo.) Ragtime Festival. Her 1997-1997 performances included Amy Beach's Piano Concerto with the Santa Barbara Symphony; and appearances in Toronto and the University of Illinois with the New England Symphony. In April she will perform Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto in three New Hampshire cities with the New Hampshire Symphony.

Following a concert performance of works by Beethoven, Chopin, and Ravel at Boston's Tsai Performance Center, Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer wrote, "the harder the music, the better Eskin plays...She's not just a pianist but a communicator." Another Globe critic, Richard Buell, wrote that her 1997 performance of the Pagannini Variations at Boston University "had the grand manner down cold...fearless and right on technically, and burning all bridges and taking no prisoners."

Virginia Eskin has made nearly twenty recordings, including works by American composers Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, Rebecca Clarke, and George Chadwick. She has recorded with the Hawthorne Quartet: Chamber Music from Theresienstadt (Channel Classics), Music of Samuel Coleridge Taylor, (Koch) and Silenced Voices (Northeastern); and with the Portland String Quartet: Dvorak's Piano Quintet (Arabesque 1995). She is widely known for her ragtime recordings: Fluffy-Ruffle Girls (Northeastern 1993), featured in Time Magazine and on CBS television; and American Beauties: The Rags of Joseph Lamb (Northeastern 1995). In 1995 Koch released her solo CD Mrs. H.H.A. Beach. Her latest recordings, both issued in the summer of 1998, are Spring Beauties featuring ragime music by contemporary composers (Koch), and works by Marion Bauer and Ruth Crawford (Albany Records).

Ms. Eskin teaches at Northeastern University and has lectured at universities throughout the United States. In 1998 she was named as host of the nationally syndicated radio program A Note to You, produced by WGBH Boston and Northeastern University. She is a regular pre-concert lecturer for the BankBoston Celebrity Series Orchestra, presented two pre-concert lectures for the 1998-1999 Boston Symphony Orchestra season, and is a regular guest on Morning Pro Musica (WGBH). In May of 1994, in recognition of her contributions to women's music, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Keene State College.

For the past several summers, Virginia Eskin has participated as a soloist and chamber player at Monadnock Music (N.H.), to which she will return in the summer of 1999. Last summer she performed at Monadnock with the New Zealand String Quartet and also presented a recital at the Rockport (MA) Music Festival.