Margot, Schwartz, violin
A native of Oakland, California, violinist Margot Schwartz is currently a member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist with the Berkeley Symphony, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Northwestern University Chamber and Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestras, was a winner of the Yale School of Music Chamber Music
Competition, a prizewinner in the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Woolsey Hall Concerto Competitions, and a finalist in the Kingsville International Competition. Additionally, Margot
has served as concertmaster of the Yale Philharmonia, Tanglewood Music Center, Music
Academy of the West, and Oberlin Chamber Orchestras. As a chamber musician, in which
capacity she has performed extensively on both violin and viola, she has been a winner of the
Yale School of Music’s annual Chamber Music Competition and has performed at New York’s
Bargemusic and at the Kennedy Center.
An enthusiastic traveler, Margot has performed orchestrally in over twenty countries as
well as on a substitute basis with the San Francisco Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber and
Minnesota Orchestras. While working with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra during the
2007-08 season, she had the honor of performing with them at Carnegie Hall and participating in
the World premiere and recording of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony. Margot has also
been a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, where she served as Principal Second Violin,
and during which time she was chosen to perform on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s
MusicNow series. Her interest in new music has given her the opportunity to work closely with
many of today’s pre-eminent composers, such as John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Aaron Jay
Kernis, John Harbison, Augusta Read Thomas, and Elliott Carter, in whose opera What Next? she
performed for its United States staged premiere at the Tanglewood Music Center.
During her graduate studies at Yale, Margot taught violin at the Lincoln-Bassett School in
New Haven, Connecticut as part of the Yale School of Music Class of ’57 “Music in Schools”
initiative, as well as at the Music Institute of Chicago, and since moving to Milwaukee she has
taught at Fritsche Middle School and coached chamber music at Homestead High School in
Mequon. As a strong advocate for increasing exposure to classical music in all communities,
Margot and fellow Yale School of Music alumna Milly Rosner (class of ’56) were recipients in
2008 of one of only three $10,000 Yale School of Music alumni Ventures grants, which they used
to further the music education programs of Summer Music Berkeley (co-founded by Milly and
Margot's mother, violinist and teacher Debbra Wood Schwartz) through their partnership with the
Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California. Margot’s summer activities have included
teaching and performing at Summer Music Berkeley, as well as her participation in the Aspen,
Music Academy of the West, and Tanglewood Music Festivals, and she currently participates in
the Bellingham (Washington) Festival of Music as well as the Peninsula Music Festival in Fish
Creek, Wisconsin. Margot holds a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, where
she studied with Ani Kavafian, as well as a Bachelor of Music which she earned cum laude from
the Northwestern University School of Music, where she was a student of Roland and Almita
Vamos.