“For Monsieur Lu,
For fixing and caring for violins with such brio
Thank you”
—Bernard Zinck
Professor of Violin ,Chamber Music Director, University of Wisconsin

 

Biography of Professor Bernard Zinck

Bernard Zinck, concert violinist and recording artist, is currently Associate Professor of violin and chamber music, and Head of the String Area, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a position he has held since 2003.

He is in demand as a coach and teacher, having served on the faculty of the Koln Summer Institute in Montepulciano, the International Lyric Academy of Rome and the Tuscia Operafestival (Italy), and the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival. He is regularly invited to conduct master classes and residencies in universities and conservatories throughout the world.

Zinck began violin studies at the age of six at the National Regional Conservatory in his hometown of Tours, France. At the age of fifteen, he entered the Paris Conservatory and was awarded three years later first prizes in violin and chamber musc; his mentors were Gérard Poulet, Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux, Tibor Varga, and Maya Glezarova. Admitted to the Juilliard School of Music as Fulbright scholar in 1987, he finished his BM and MM degrees with Joseph Fuchs after only four years of study. In 2006, he earned a DMA from Temple University in Philadelphia with a thesis on the eighteenth-century French violinist Chevalier de Saint-George, a remarkable figure of the French Enlightenment whose compositions he has researched, lectured on and performed. He has been invited to participate in the first international conference on Saint-George to be held in the composer's birthplace, Guadeloupe, in 2010.

Bernard Zinck's concert career began when he won the 1992 Yehudi Menuhin Trust Award in Paris. His scintillating recordings of Szymanowski's Complete Works for Violin and Piano, Live From France and Uncommon Voices have won him the reputation of an expert interpreter of impressionist and contemporary music. He has a close affinity with the works of the European nationalist composers of the early twentienth century, but is equally committed to a repertoire ranging fro Corelli to Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. His talent and interpretive insight have made him a sought-after soloist and he has performed extensively in concerts and recitals in Europe, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea and Japan. Recent venues include the Théatre du Chatelet and Athénée Théatre Louis Jouvet in Paris, the Théatre Impérial in Compiègne, Les Flaneries de Reims, Radio-France Montpellier and Rencontres Musicales de Calenzana (France); Brighton Arts (U.K.); Salzburg Mozarteum (Austria); Liszt Academy in Budapest (Hungary); Szymanowski Festival in Zakopane (Poland); Basilica San Clemente in Rome and Orsanmichele Church in Florence (Italy); the National Gallery and the Phillips Collection in Washington DC; the Bowdoin International Music Festival; and the Santa Fe Concert Association. He has appeared as guest soloist with many orchestras, including the New Mesico Symphony, the Princeton Chamber Players, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chihuahua, the Porto Alegre, Unisinos, Caxias and Camargo Guarneri Symphony Orchestras in Brazil, the Hungarian National Philharmonic, the Bohemia Symphony, the Radio-Television Orchestra of Romania, the New Opera Di Roma Orchestra and the Orchestre National de la Garde Républicaine in Paris. Residing in Chicago, Bernard Zinck has appeared in numerous concert series: Dame Myra Hess at the Cultural Center, Rush Hour at St. James Cathedral, St. James Cathedral Concerts, Cube, The Alliance Francaise, and was featured with members of the Chicago Chamber Musicians on WFMT "Live from Studio One".

Bernard Zinck's continual engagement with music has led him to seek out new collaborations, particularly with organists and dancers, and new repertoire from twentieth-century Mexican and Brazilian composers. His artistry has been praised in terms such as "impeccable accuracy of pitch" and "formidable technique". The Strad Magazine noted his "round and opulent tone" and his "vibrato bringing moments of sheer ecstasy", while Fanfare Magazine was impressed by the "singing, sensuous, sumptuous, shimmering" quality of his playing, which the French Figaro summed up in the expression "violon solaire".

Since 2002, Bernard Zinck plays a Giovanni Battista Rogeri violin, dated 1690 - a purchase made possible with the support of the Bass family.