Samantha Bennett, violin
Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as a violinist “full of subtlety and poise”, Samantha Bennett is an active and varied performer around the globe. Ms. Bennett is the Principal Second Violin of the Sarasota Orchestra, and the founder and Co-Artistic Director of ensembleNEWSRQ, a contemporary music collective based in Sarasota, FL. Prior to her position with Sarasota Orchestra, she was a member of The Florida Orchestra, and performs regularly with Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops and has been Guest Concertmaster of the New Haven Symphony. A fierce advocate of new music, she has premiered works by Gunther Schuller, Toshio Hosokawa, Oliver Knussen, John Cage, George Benjamin, Augusta Read Thomas, and Philip Glass. As Concertmaster of the New Haven Symphony, Ms. Bennett recorded works for “Portrait of Augusta Read Thomas” (Nimbus Records), including the World Premiere recording of Augusta Read Thomas’ saxophone concerto Hemke Concerto “Prisms of Light”. She has participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy, Spoleto Festival USA, the Music Academy of the West, and the Tanglewood Music Festival, where she performed for three seasons with the New Fromm Players, a group that specializes in contemporary music performance. At Tanglewood, she premiered Einojuhani Rautavaara's 'Lost Landscapes' for solo violin and orchestra. In addition, the Fromm Players performed as Ensemble-In-Residence at composer Bright Sheng's festival Intimacy of Creativity in Hong Kong in 2015. Born in Ames, Iowa, Ms. Bennett completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees at the New England Conservatory in Boston studying with Donald Weilerstein and Malcolm Lowe.