NEW YORK, November 16, 2022 – Renowned international music conservatory Manhattan School of Music (MSM) announced today that esteemed violinists – both MSM alumni – Chloé Kiffer and Xiao Wang will join the School’s prestigious Strings faculty, led by Chair Nicholas Mann.
The two appointments follow several high-profile faculty additions announced by the School in recent months, including two other violin appointments: Emerson Quartet founding member Eugene Drucker and Harlem Quartet founding member and MSM alumnus Ilmar Gavilán (MM ’01, PS ’02). In addition to these and other high-profile faculty appointments, longtime concertmaster of the Met Opera Orchestra David Chan assumed the mantle of leadership of MSM’s renowned Graduate Program in Orchestral Performance; the program – formerly chaired by Glenn Dicterow – is the first accredited degree program of its kind in the United States and recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.
Xiao Wang was first-prize winner of the 2012 Szigeti International Violin Competition and a Laureate of both the 2015 Queen Elisabeth Competition and the 2015 Seoul International Competition. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and Artist Diploma from MSM. Chloé Kiffer is a soloist and orchestral and chamber musician who has performed around the world and throughout the U.S.; she has been praised by The New York Times for her “pure and beautiful tone” and been described by The Greenwich Sentinel as “a star in every sense.” She earned her master’s degree and Professional Studies certificate from MSM.
Both Mr. Wang and Ms. Kiffer are already members of the MSM Precollege Division faculty and will assume their new teaching duties with the College at the start of the Fall 2023 semester.
“Chloé and Xiao are wonderful new additions to our impressive and inspiring Strings faculty at MSM,” says department chair Nicholas Mann. “These two newest faculty appointments, in addition to other recent additions to the department, such as Eugene Drucker and Ilmar Gavilán, are building on a tradition of excellence that runs deep in this institution.”
David Chan’s leadership of the MSM Orchestral Performance Program – an area of study that provides graduate students with individual instruction from leading musicians drawn from world-renowned orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and Met Opera Orchestra, while allowing its students to form the core unit of key MSM ensembles – has also brought an inspiring depth of experience and new energy to MSM since he started as Head of the department on July 1.
“As MSM continues to build on its more than 100 years of excellence, it is exciting to welcome these talented and creative artist-educators as faculty,” says Executive Vice President and Provost Joyce Griggs, “and, in the case of Chloé and Xiao, both of whom earned multiple degrees here, to welcome them home. Their respective track records as musicians and teachers, combined with their belief in the mission of MSM and their commitment to our Cultural Inclusion initiatives, will greatly enhance the Strings faculty and the School writ large.”
Chloé Kiffer’s and Xiao Wang’s bios, as well as more information about MSM and its Graduate Program in Orchestral Performance, can be found below.
For further information, please contact Jeff Breithaupt, Vice President for Media and Communications, at jbreithaupt@msmnyc.edu or (917) 493-4702.
Violinist Chloé Kiffer, native of France, has received enthusiastic praise by The New York Times for her “pure and beautiful tone” and The Greenwich Sentinel for being “…a star in every sense: performance, exquisite technique and beauty.” Kiffer feels as comfortable performing solo on the international stage as she does in intimate chamber settings.
Performing solo and orchestra engagements throughout Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia, Kiffer has appeared at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Beethoven Hall in Bonn, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Hall, Tel Aviv Opera, and Beijing National Center. In October 2015, she made her Carnegie Hall debut performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in Stern Auditorium. Kiffer has collaborated with artists such as Philippe Muller, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Timothy Eddy, the Emerson String Quartet, and pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine.
Kiffer is on the faculties of the University of North Texas, the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, and the FaceArts Institute of Music in Shanghai. Her students have received high praise for their performances and won prizes at national and international competitions.
Kiffer is a sought-after guest teacher and faculty member for conservatories and festivals around the world, including Heifetz International Music Institute, Miami Music Festival, Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, Chamber Music International (Texas), MusicFest Perugia (Italy), and MusicAlps (France).
Kiffer is a laureate of the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation. She graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and earned postgraduate degrees from Manhattan School of Music under Patinka Kopec and Pinchas Zukerman. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University.
In 2019, she released an album of the Ravel Violin Sonatas on the Steinway & Sons label with pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine.
Chloé Kiffer performs on a Samuel Zygmuntowicz violin (Brooklyn, NY, 2015).
Xiao Wang has been praised by the New York Times as an “excellent violinist,” who “made the most of its expressive opportunities.” First-prize winner of the 2012 Szigeti International Violin Competition and 2016 New York Concert Artist, he has received numerous prizes and awards from international competitions, including the 2015 Queen Elizabeth Competition and the 2015 Seoul International Competition.
Mr. Wang has toured throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. As a soloist, he performed at Bela Bartok National Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Gewandhaus, Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonic, National Center for Performing Art in Beijing, and Seoul Art Center. He worked under the baton of Marin Alsop, David Gilbert, János Kovács, George Manahan, and András Ligeti, and performed with orchestras including the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Kodály Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Academisches Orchester.
Mr. Wang was invited as a guest artist and faculty member and given recitals and masterclasses at the Budapest Spring Festival, Texas Music Festival, Festival International de Musique de Wissembourg, Bravo Music Festival, Qingdao Music Festival, and Beijing International Music Festival and Academy and Manhattan in the Mountains. As a passionate chamber musician, he has collaborated with members of the American String Quartet, the Mendelssohn String Quartet, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and faculty members of Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music, and the Juilliard School.
Xiao Wang began his violin studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing with Weidong Tong and later studied with Joseph Silverstein at the Curtis Institute of Music. He received his BM, MM, and Artist Diploma from Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of Lucie Robert.
ABOUT THE MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ORCHESTRAL PERFORMANCE
In 1991, Manhattan School of Music inaugurated the Graduate Program in Orchestral Performance, the first accredited degree program of its kind in the United States. Chaired by Glenn Dicterow for its first three decades and, as of July 1, 2022, led by David Chan as its newly appointed Head, the program seeks to produce polished musicians of the highest artistic caliber, who are prepared intensively in the orchestral repertoire for careers as symphonic players. Students are trained to participate fully in both performance and other nonmusical aspects of life in the modern orchestra, such as orchestra governance, artistic planning, community engagement, and audience development. Since the program’s founding, alumni have earned hundreds of orchestral positions in orchestras across the U.S. and worldwide. Its faculty include musicians from the Met Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
ABOUT MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Founded as a community music school by Janet Daniels Schenck in 1918, today MSM is recognized for its more than 1,000 superbly talented undergraduate and graduate students who come from more than 50 countries and nearly all 50 states; its innovative curricula and world-renowned artist-teacher faculty that includes musicians from the New York Philharmonic, the Met Orchestra, and the top ranks of the jazz and Broadway communities; and a distinguished community of accomplished, award-winning alumni working at the highest levels of the musical, educational, cultural, and professional worlds.
The School is dedicated to the personal, artistic, and intellectual development of aspiring musicians, from its Precollege students through those pursuing doctoral studies. Offering classical, jazz, and musical theatre training, MSM grants a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees. True to MSM’s origins as a music school for children, the Precollege program continues to offer superior music instruction to 475 young musicians between the ages of 5 and 18. The School also serves some 2,000 New York City schoolchildren through its Arts-in-Education Program, and another 2,000 students through its critically acclaimed Distance Learning Program.
MSM LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Manhattan School of Music acknowledges that we gather on the traditional land of the Lenape and Wappinger past and present, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. This calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit as well.
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