Biography

American-Israeli violinist Giora Schmidt is recognized for performances marked by communicative intensity and stylistic versatility.
Praised by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "impossible to resist, captivating with lyricism, tonal warmth, and boundless enthusiasm," he is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and has appeared as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and major orchestras including Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, Atlanta, and Detroit.

Recent seasons have included performances of concertos by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Lalo, and Korngold, alongside Piazzolla's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Schmidt has appeared across North America, Europe, Israel, and South America with the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy, Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile, Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM, Prague Chamber Orchestra, and with orchestras throughout the United States and Canada.

Schmidt has collaborated with conductors including Domingo Hindoyan, Carlo Rizzi, Jun Märkl, Leo Hussain, Itzhak Perlman, Asher Fish, James DePreist, Grant Llewellyn, Thomas Wilkins, Gerard Schwarz, Jorge Mester, Tito Muñoz, Andrew Sewell, and Zbyněk Müller.

As a recitalist and chamber musician, Schmidt has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, the Kennedy Center, the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre in Paris, Tokyo's Musashino Cultural Hall, and Orchesterzentrum NRW in Dortmund. Festival appearances have included Ravinia, the Santa Fe and Montreal Chamber Music Festivals, Bard Music Festival, Scotia Festival of Music, Music Academy of the West, Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz, the Cartagena Music Festival, and the Eastern Festival of Music. He has shared the stage with artists including Yefim Bronfman, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Ralph Kirshbaum, and the late Lynn Harrell and Michael Tree.

Deeply committed to the next generation of musicians, Schmidt is on the artist faculty of New York University (NYU Steinhardt). He previously taught at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, The Juilliard School, Orford Musique Academy in Québec, and the Perlman Music Program.

Born in Philadelphia to Israeli musicians, Schmidt studied with Patinka Kopec and Geoffrey Michaels before graduating from The Juilliard School, where his teachers included Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman. Recent recordings include the Brahms Regenlied EP on Fifth House, reflecting a repertoire that has long been central to his artistic life.