Joseph Lin, violin

Joseph Lin, violin

Sought after as a performer and teacher, Joseph Lin appears regularly at halls, festivals, and conservatories throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He was first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet from 2011 to 2018 before stepping down to devote more time to his four young children; he continues to teach violin and chamber music at Juilliard, leading several artistic initiatives and enjoying collaborations with both students and colleagues. His recent projects include a collaboration with Robert Levin playing Beethoven and Schubert on period instruments, a Musicians from Marlboro tour on violin and viola, collaborations with Juilliard students during ChamberFest, and performances of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto. Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Joseph Lin led performances of Beethoven’s late string quartets for Camerata Pacifica; and at Juilliard, he and pianist Helen Huang will perform the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas.  Marking the 300th year of Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas, Lin presented a complete cycle in Boston and baroque performances of the set in Philadelphia.  Next season, Lin returns to Mozart’s masterpiece, the Divertimento K. 563, which he takes on tour with Musicians from Marlboro.

From 2007 to 2011, Lin taught at Cornell University, where he organized the inaugural Chinese Musicians Residency in 2009. The following year, he led a project with Cornell composers to study Bach’s violin Sonatas and Partitas and create new works inspired by Bach, culminating in a series of concerts premiering the new works alongside Bach’s.

Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, which won the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. In 1996, he won first prize at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. In 1999, he was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award and, in 2001, he won first prize at the inaugural Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. His recordings include the music of Korngold and Busoni with pianist Benjamin Loeb; an album of Debussy, Franck, and Milhaud with pianist Orion Weiss; and the complete unaccompanied works of Bach and Ysaÿe. His recording of Mozart’s A Major Violin Concerto with original cadenzas was released in 2017. With the Juilliard Quartet, he recorded Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and Elliot Carter’s Fifth Quartet as well as the quartet’s most recent album, of Beethoven, Davidovsky, and Bartók. During the summer season, he is a regular artist at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Marlboro festivals.

Lin, whose violin teachers have included Mary Canberg, Shirley Givens, and Lynn Chang, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2000, and in 2002 began an extended exploration of China, where he studied Chinese music as a Fulbright scholar.