Valeria Vilker Kuchment

Valeria Vilker Kuchment received her graduate and postgraduate degrees from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, where she was a student of Yuri Yankelevich. Upon finishing her studies, she became a faculty member at Tchaikovsky Conservatory College. She was a prizewinner in a number of international violin and chamber music competitions, including the International Violin Competition at Prague and at Munich, where she was awarded first prize. She has appeared as recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician throughout the former Soviet Union, Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and France and with such artists as Gil Shaham, Garrick Ohlsson, and Emanuel Ax.

Since coming to the United States in 1975, Vilker Kuchment has performed throughout the country, winning critical acclaim for her appearances in Washington, Boston, and at New York's Lincoln Center. She has also been first violin for the Apple Hill Chamber Players and concertmaster of SinfoNova, the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society, and Boston Philharmonic. Vilker Kuchment joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 1986-87 season and has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra. She is a faculty member at New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and Boston University Tanglewood Institute; many of her students have gone on to become members of leading orchestras and chamber music groups in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. She has recorded for Melodiya, Sine Qua Non, and Sonora Productions.