ensemble biography

 SILVERSTEIN-WALDEN DUO
Elicia Silverstein, baroque and modern violins.
Daniel Walden, historical and modern keyboards.
Over the past several years, the Silverstein-Walden Duo has captivated audiences
around Europe with performances that challenge conventional concert programming by
forging new connections across four hundred years of repertoire for violin and keyboard
instruments. This past year, the duo presented recitals in Germany, England, Finland and
the Netherlands at venues including King’s College Chapel, Cambridge and the Sibelius
Academy in Helsinki.
Violinist Elicia Silverstein and pianist/harpsichordist Daniel Walden met in 2002 as
young students at Greenwood Music Camp in Cummington, MA. Their collaborations as a
violin-piano duo began in 2009; since then, they have participated together at Aspen
Music Festival & School, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and the Midnight Sun
Fortepiano Workshop. Their mentors have included Margaret Faultless, Laurie Smukler,
Ilan Gronich, Tuija Hakkila, David Breitman and Vera Beths.
The duo is currently focusing on two projects. The first is a program pairing
experimental Italian music of the seventeeth-century stylus phantasticus with works of the
twentieth-century avanguardia. Performing on both historical and modern instruments, the
duo explores these interconnected musical worlds in works by Luciano Berio (1925-2003),
Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704), Niccolò Castiglioni (1932-1996), Heinrich Ignaz Franz
Biber (1644-1704), Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) and Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947).
This project also forms the basis for Silverstein’s current research in the Netherlands as a
Fulbright scholar at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, under the guidance of Vera Beths,
Lucy van Dael and Anner Bijlsma. The second project focuses on the complete works for
violin and piano of Franz Schubert, which the duo will record on period instruments in
January 2015. The project began Cambridge, UK, encouraged by Christopher Hogwood,
who provided the duo with generous use of his six-octave Viennese fortepiano designed by
Josef Johann Brodmann. Silverstein and Walden have previously presented several allSchubert programs together, including at King’s College, Cambridge in collaboration with
baritone Richard Lloyd Morgan.
Please visit <www.eliciasilverstein.com> and <www.danielwaldenpiano.com> for
more information.