Sylvia Schwartz

Fascinated and deeply inspired by the relationship between music, movement, and dance, violinist and Dalcrozian Sylvia Schwartz is a passionate chamber musician in both modern and historical performance practices. A native of Boston, MA, Sylvia performs currently with ensembles including Guts Baroque, Baroque Orchestra of Maine, Aurora Camerata, Ad Libitum Ensemble, Portland Symphony Orchestra, vigorous tenderness, and Portland Bach Experience/Classical Uprising. She has also played with Newton Baroque, Eudaimonia—A Purposeful Period Band, Arcadia Players, New England Classical Singers, Coro Allegro, Palaver Strings, L’Esprit Baroque, Los Angeles Baroque, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, UCLA Early Music Ensemble, Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Amherst Baroque Academy Opera & Festival Orchestras, the folk/baroque band Lizzie and the Flakjackets, and the prog/alt rock bands The Mood Swings and The Fixtures. 

As a chamber and orchestral musician she has performed across the United States and Europe, including Shostakovich Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the major halls of Boston. She has performed recitals extensively in the Boston area. She has also been a member of the Harvard Summer Chorus, Chorus pro Musica, and The Masterworks Chorale, and sees in her students as well as herself the great benefit singing has for string players.

Sylvia is equally passionate about bringing music to life as a performer and nurturing creative expression and empowerment in her music students. She augments the Suzuki Method with improvisation, Dalcroze-inspired eurythmics, and movement awareness inspired by Alexander Technique, Body Mapping, and Feldenkrais to simultaneously develop fluent musicality, joy in making music, a solid instrumental technique, and musicianship (including reading and theory). A former sufferer of tendonitis, she has a particular interest in addressing and preventing performance injuries, in both beginning and experienced players. Sylvia is a Board Member of the Maine Suzuki Association and has led masterclasses and play-ins for MSA, and co-taught a baroque performance workshop for Pineland Suzuki.

Sylvia earned a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Laura Bossert and coached extensively in historically-informed performance practice with Dana Maiben, Na’ama Lion, Vivian Montgomery, and Ryan Turner. She is a certified Suzuki Violin Teacher through Book 4, studying with Carol Sykes, Pat D’Ercole, Ed Sprunger, and Ed Kreitman.

Sylvia teaches in southern Maine, at Portland Conservatory of Music and 317 Main Community Music Center.