California-born violinist Zina Schiff has been described by the New York Times as an instrumentalist of “Luscious high voltage…vintage Heifetz.” The comparison to the legendary Heifetz is apt, as Zina is a Heifetz protégée. With her special blend of passion, poetry and communicative power, she has dazzled audiences throughout North America, Eastern and Western Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In the United States, Zina has soloed with such major orchestras as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Rochester, Brooklyn, San Antonio, Nashville, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Zina’s many awards include the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Award, the San Francisco Symphony Foundation Award, and a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music. As a student of Ivan Galamian at The Curtis Institute of Music, she won both the Junior and Senior Auditions of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Named one of the “Top Ten College Winners” by Glamour Magazine during her senior year at the University of California at Berkeley, Zina was selected as an “Outstanding Young Artist” by Musical America and honored as a “Distinguished Alumna” by Louisiana State University in Shreveport, where she earned her masters degree in liberal arts. She also completed a Master of Jewish Studies degree from Spertus Institute. Zina was guest speaker at the 2014 convention of the American String Teachers Association. Her talk, “The Ten Commandments of Jascha Heifetz,” appeared in the August issue of String Magazine. Zina has performed at such summer festivals as Aspen, Music from Bear Valley, Mendocino, Sewanee and Newport, where her artistry was described as “pure perfume”.