Renata Arado, violin

   
    Renata Arado was born in Chicago, where she began violin instruction in a Suzuki program at the age of two. As an elementary and high school student she was under the tutelage of Dr. Roland Vamos, and continued her violin studies at the University of Michigan and Rice University as a student of violinist Camilla Wicks. She holds a master’s degree in violin performance and chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory, as a student of Ian Swensen and as a participant in the intensive chamber music program.
    Arado was principal second violin of Norway’s Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for twelve years, a position she left in 2008 to pursue new musical opportunities and devote more time to her three children. She has appeared in chamber groups around the globe, collaborating with musicians such as Isaac Stern, Robert Mann, Yefim Bronfman, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony, Sylvia Rosenberg, Anton Kuerti, Julia Fisher, Camilla Wicks and Harry Connick Jr., to name a few.
    Arado performs in recitals and chamber series in the U.S. and Norway as a duo with her husband violinist/violist Espen Lilleslåtten. In a performance at The Barge Music Series, the New York Times wrote, "they offered a beautifully nuanced interpretation of Martinu’s Madrigals for violin and viola…vividly illuminating the counterpoint and homophonic textures of the rhythmically driven first movement and playing the elegiac trills in the second movement with finesse.” In June 2011, Renata and Espen appeared as soloists in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall performing the premiere of Dinos Constantinides Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra.
    Arado spends her summers teaching and performing at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where she has been on the faculty since 1996. An active recitalist, she had presented several solo and chamber concerts at Troldsalen, the recital hall at the historic home of Edvard Grieg, and at Lysøen, home of legendary violinist Ole Bull. Arado has performed as soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic of Norway, The Louisiana Sinfonietta, The University of Bergen Symphony, and the orchestras of the San Francisco Conservatory and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.