Biography
“Yizhak Schotten makes the viola do everything.”
Israeli-born violist Yizhak Schotten was discovered and brought to the United States by the renowned violist William Primrose.
He studied with Primrose at Indiana University and the University of Southern California. Other studies were with Lillian Fuchs at the Manhattan School of Music. A feature article about Yizhak Schotten in STRAD Magazine called him "one of America's finest viola players... a leading light of the U.S. viola establishment." His solo appearances with orchestras in this country and abroad have included performances with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Thomas Schippers, Sergiu Commissiona, Joseph Swensen, Arthur Fiedler and others. He has concertized in Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Holland, Austria, Mexico, England, Canada and throughout the United States. His solo recitals have included Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Merkin Hall in New York, Boston's Jordan Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among others.
Performances
As a member of the Trio d'Accordo, Yizhak Schotten won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York, and the trio performed on many of this country's prestigious concert series. He often collaborates with renowned musicians, and has appeared in chamber concerts at the Aspen Music Festival, Bargemusic in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., at Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Concertgebouw in Holland. Mr. Schotten has also had numerous broadcasts on National Public Radio. He was the Artistic Director of the XIV International Viola Congress and has been a featured artist at six other International Congresses.
“The performances here, by a husband-and-wife team who are virtuosos in their own right, are virtually beyond reproach.... On an interpretative level, Schotten is totally at home with all three pieces and his collaboration with his pianist is impeccable.””
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Formerly a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Yizhak Schotten was chosen to be an exchange artist with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Later he became principal violist of the Cincinnati and Houston Symphony Orchestras. In the summers he has also been on the faculties and performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff, Meadowmount, Interlochen, and appeared in the Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, Montreal, Skaneateles, and the Juneau Festivals. Abroad he has performed at the Taipei Philharmonic Festival in Taiwan, the Festival Internacional de Musica Clasica in Mexico, the Festival de Musique de Chambre de Montréal, and the Amsterdam Kamermuziek Festival in Holland. As director, Yizhak Schotten and his pianist wife, Katherine Collier, were Music Directors of the Maui Classical Music Festival in Hawaii, the Strings in the Mountains Festival in Steamboat Springs Colorado and Chamber Music Ann Arbor. In 1997, he represented the United States as a judge and performer at the Tertis International Viola Competition in England.
RECORDINGS
Yizhak Schotten recorded 3 LPs and 6 CDs for Crystal Records including his reconstruction of the J.S.Bach Concerto in D for Viola and Strings. The Orchestra Excerpts CD, released in 2004, features over fifty solo and tutti orchestral excerpts from twenty-three symphonic works with written and spoken commentary. His C.R.I. recording of the Bloch Suite and the Hindemith Sonata Op. 25 #4 (world premiere recording) was chosen as “Critics’ Choice” for three months in High Fidelity Magazine. Pearl Records included his playing on its anthology, “History of the Recording of the World’s Finest Violists.”
TEACHING AND MASTERCLASSES
Yizhak Schotten joined the University of Michigan School of Music faculty in l985 after having taught at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the University of Washington in Seattle. He was also on the American Federation of Musician's Congress of Strings faculty. As a teacher of prize winning students, he is very active giving master classes to young violists throughout the United States and abroad. He has given recitals and master classes in England at the Tertis International Competition at the Isle of Man, the Menuhin School in Surrey, and the Guildhall School of Music and Royal College of Music in London. He has also given master classes in Israel at the Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem Academies of Music, at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia, and in Taiwan for the Hsing Tien Kong Culture & Education Development Foundation.